|
A double-CD of the entire contents of this remarkable book has been recorded by Terence Charlston for
Deux-Elles Recordings and will be released later this year
(2009). The music is for keyboard instruments and has been recorded using a
double
manual harpsichord after Ioannes Ruckers, 1624, Unterlinden Museum, Colmar made
by Andrew Garlick, Buckland St. Mary, 1998; a double-fretted clavichord after
Donat clavichord, no. 12 in the Leipzig University Museum of Musical
Instruments, dated c. 1700, made by Karin Richter, 1997;
and the historic organ of St. Botolph’s Aldgate, London,
built by Renatus Harris, c.1702, reinstalled in the new building by John
Byfield, 1744
and restored by Goetze and Gwynn, 2006 to the 1744 specification. The edition used in this recording was specially
prepared by Terence Charlston. |
DXL 1143 (2 CD) |
Notes about the Selosse manuscript, the music and Terence Charlston's performing edition of the Selosse manuscript which was used for this recording taken from Terence Charlston, La Chasse Royale: Keyboard Manuscript of Antoine Selosse (Deux-Elles, DXL 1143, 2010) and additional material.
The performing edition used in this recording
List of contents of the Selosse Manuscript
The Selosse Manuscript was discovered in 2004 by
Peter Leech. It contains keyboard pieces apparently compiled by ‘Padre Antonio
Mason, alias Seloss’—probably the Jesuit musician Antoine Selosse (1621–87), who was active at the English Jesuit College of Saint Omer in
the 1680s. Selosse had a nephew, also Antoine, (b.
1653), who is not known to have been a musician but who came to England and who was chaplain to the
Goring family and imprisoned after the reign of James II. A further
Selosse is known to have worked at Saint Lambert, Liege, from about 1651 until
1657. Fourteen pieces are also found in a manuscript belonging to Christopher
Hogwood (GB-CAMhogwood, M1471), and the two
sources are clearly related.
The book probably dates from the 1680s. It is in oblong quarto format and measures 16.7 x 21 cm. It is bound in brown calf with a finely-tooled and gilded spine typical of library bindings c.1680–1720, possibly French. The binding is very likely original. It contains 189 pages pre-ruled with four six-line staves, 145 with music written on them. Two pages have been cut out after page 146. The top stave of the next page, page 147, has a single treble clef in brown ink written in a later style (and presumably a later hand). This clef is placed erroneously on the second line up from the bottom of the first stave. A single worm hole marks each page from page 163 to the end (including flyleaves). Music has been neatly copied in good quality brown ink by the same, professional hand throughout. Pagination has been added at a later stage in pencil by an unknown hand.
Two types of copying paper have been used: high-quality material for the music and thinner paper for the two flyleaves at the front and back. The watermarks on the music paper is the Arms of Amsterdam and on the flyleaves is of the ‘Dutch Lion’ type, countermarked with the initials ‘AJ’, presumably indicating the mill of Abraham Janssen (1635–1710), whose Puymoyen factory operated from around 1660 until his death. The first flyleaf page is inscribed ‘Mary Cicely Tichborne her book/given her by Mr. Toussaint la poülle’ and the fifth flyleaf page has the inscription ‘Cuiou Tocata per il Cembalo del Padre Antonio Mason, alias Seloss’.
Literature: Candace Bailey, ‘Restoration Music in the Digital Age’, Early Music, 37/2 (2009), 318–20. Peter Leech, ‘A New Source of Seventeenth Century Keyboard Music – the Antoine Selosse Manuscript’, Proceedings of the 12th Biennial Conference on Baroque Music (Warsaw, July, 2006). The Selosse Manuscript. Seventeenth-Century Jesuit Keyboard Music, ed. P. Leech (Bicester, 2008/rev. ed. 2009). Andrew Woolley, English Keyboard Sources and their Contexts, c. 1660-1720 (PhD thesis, The University of Leeds, 2008). Terence Charlston, ’Concealed Within? Liturgical Organ Music in the Selosse Manuscript’, The Organ 89, no. 353 (2010), 15–20. Peter Leech and Maurice Whitehead, ‘‘In paradise and among angels’: music and musicians at St Omers English Jesuit College, 1593–1721’, Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 61 (2011), 57–82. Peter Leech, ‘Music and Musicians in the Catholic Chapel of James II at Whitehall, 1686–1688’, Early Music 39/3 (2011), 379–400. Terence Charlston, ‘A discourse of styles: Contrasting gigue types in the A minor Jig from the Purcell partial autograph, GB-Lbl MS Mus. 1’, in Andrew Woolley and John Kitchen (eds.), Interpreting Historical Keyboard Music: sources, contexts and performance (Farnham, forthcoming), Chapter 7.
The following is a
commentary on each piece in the collection. The numbers in bold refer both to
the track numbers CD recording and this numbering corresponds to the piece numbers in
the
The repertoire chosen for
inclusion in Selosse’s remarkable book covers a broad spectrum of the genres
popular in seventeenth-century Europe and reveals a wide range of national
influences and styles. Although the volume consists of mainly dance pieces, it
opens with three sets of variations and a fugal work and has another block of
non-dance music about two thirds of the way through. The dances (often with
variations of their own) are grouped by key and fourteen pieces are also present in Hogwood (GB-CAMhogwood, M1471), an English
source closely related to Selosse. Few pieces have a specific title and no
composers are named. The authorship of only one piece can be stated with
confidence: Bull’s popular The King’s
Hunt 3.
While the choice of
instrumentation is ultimately an artistic decision, the Selosse manuscript
contains a number of significant clues to guide the performer. Registration
instructions in piece 20,
for example, indicate that one or more sections may be a collection of
organ music. Pieces 2, 4, and 20-28
are performed on an original 18th-century English organ and in a
manner which, speculatively, a foreign organist visiting London might have
adopted. Likewise, the considerable number of concordances with the Hogwood
manuscript, which describes 31 and 32 as ‘fitt for
the manicorde’, suggested a further important colour, the clavichord. The
clavichord was undoubtedly in use in England and on the continent at the time
the book was being compiled and its place in the performance traditions of the
time may be much more significant than the paucity of surviving instruments
suggests. The remaining pieces are played on a plucked keyboard instrument, in
this instance a Franco-Flemish style harpsichord.
1
The monumental set of variations on the ‘La Folia’ ground which open the
collection deploy a rich panoply of textures and technical devices. They run to
24 variations including the opening statement and the theme is written as mainly
equal crotchets throughout. The set is very similar to its concordance in the
Hogwood MS, although Selosse is five variations longer and has 10 sections
unique to it, and only 14 sections are
shared between the two sources. The two sources also disagree on certain small
details of the text. Sections 14 and 15 of Selosse are
particularly expressive and the reordering and reworking of the last third of
the work, arguably strengthens its conclusion.
Basic
structure of 2 |
|||||||||||
Intro |
R |
V |
R |
V |
R |
V |
R |
V |
R |
V |
R |
1–8 |
|
13–21 |
|
25–34 |
|
39–79 |
|
85–94 |
|
101–129 |
|
R
= refrain, V = variations, 1–8 = bar numbers |
3
Bull’s The
King’s Hunt, here copied without title or ascription and some 50 years
after the composer’s death in Antwerp, remained popular throughout the 17th
century. This G major variation set has an initial theme followed by two
variations. The choice of accidentals is far from clear and I have tried to
follow the source, which has no F sharp in the key signature, as closely as
possible, with occasional C sharps drawn from Tregian (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book,
GB-Cfm Mu.Ms.168, pp. 250–2) and Cosyn
(F-Pc, Rés. 1185, no. 25, pp. 104–10).
4
This free ‘toccata’ opens with a
canzona followed by a tripla section with two mensuration changes and a final slow duple
based on the rising tetrachord.
5–6 Suite in C major. 5 Courante and variation. Both so titled in MS. Unusually the courant has no upbeat, although the second note is syncopated. The wide spacing of treble melody and two-part left hand accompaniment is typical of much English Restoration keyboard music (e.g.Playford’s Musicks Hand-maid, 1663/1678 and Locke’s Melothesia, 1673). The largely two-part texture of the variation is more Italian in character with running quavers and semiquavers. Leech's revised edition (2009) numbers the variation 5b.
6
Sarabande and variation. Both so titled in MS. A lyrical sarabande with one six-bar phrase (second half, beginning) to break the expected periodicity of 8-bar
units.
The variation is in 9/8 time, jig-like, and close in texture and rhythmic drive
to some of John Blow’s harpsichord music (see Musica Britannica, vol. 73, nos.
17 and 46).
7–11
Suite in F major.
7
The characteristic three-part texture of the Allemande (treble melody and
two-part left hand accompaniment) is typical of Restoration keyboard music. Its
melodic material is largely figural and it has an unusual modulation scheme (the
conclusion of the first half in the tonic instead of the dominant is unusual) with occasional
chromaticism in the melody (made more poignant in meantone temperament). The
remaining dances are all variations each using the same harmonic outline, a practice
also found in English keyboard music (John Roberts and F-Pc Rés 1185) but
probably continental in origin (Ebner, Buxtehude, Böhm, etc. and French music
in English sources such as La Barre). 8
The four-part texture of this Sarabande might be considered un-English and its
harmonic finesse and rhythmic poise suggest French inspiration (Chambonnières,
for example). The courante 9 is
typical of the variation style associated with John Roberts (see 14)
while the two-part 10 is very
different, perhaps a menuet or another courante. The final variation 11
is in 9/8 time and closely related to the variation of 6. The two-part invention or bicinium
aspect of this piece is emphasised by the hemiola effects in bars 21–22.
12
A set of 11 strains on an 8-bar
chaconne ground subdivided into two binary form halves both of 4 bars. Andrew
Woolley has drawn attention to several other keyboard versions (GB- Ob, MS Mus. Sch. e. 426, ff. Iv-2, apparently in the hand of the
German musician Andreas Roner and copied in England around 1710; US-Cn, Case MS
VM 2.3 E58r, ff. lAv-2A, 'Elizabeth Roper her Booke 1691', but apparently copied
in France; GB-Cfm, MU MS 653, p. 21, and GB-Lbl, MS Mus. 1625, f. 41v.)
13-14 This G major suite is also found in the Hogwood MS and has been associated with the name John Roberts on stylistic grounds (see Candace Bailey, The Keyboard Music of John Roberts. New York: Broude Trust, 2003, nos 4 and 5; and 17, which also exhibits some of Bailey’s diagnostic features.) Like 9 and 15, the courante is followed by a variation which breaks the harmony into flowing quaver patterns. There is a case for interpolating these variations as the repeat of each half of the original courante. Only the variations of 27 and 28 are interpolated on this recording and the remainder are performed successively. The C sharps in 14 are taken from Hogwood. The D sharps are editorial. Leech's revised edition (2009) numbers the variation 14b.
15
Another courante and variation pair similar to 14
and also found in the Hogwood MS. The Selosse copyist omitted one bar in the
first piece (between bars 32 and 33) and miscopied bars 12–14 of the
variation. These have been supplied from Hogwood. Again, the plangeant effect of
certain melodic and harmonic inflections is heightened in unequal tuning. The
variation is stylistically similar to 9,
one of two pieces in the book possibly by Roberts (see 13-14).
16–19
Suite in D major. 16 is a prelude
combining both measured and unmeasured notation as found in the French clavecinistes such as Le Bègue in his first book of 1677. The
opening four notes of 17 meet one of
Bailley’s criteria for attribution to John Roberts. The syncopations of the
first half of 18 may have been
inspired by Locke’s Rant (Melothesia,
1673) although its second half has entirely new material. Bar 13 contains the
only appearance in the MS of the wavy vertical line, usually used to indicate
arpeggiation. Quite why it appears only here in the manuscript is unclear. It is
performed as a continuous breaking of the chord, an interpretation suggested by
Prendcourt (GB-Y MS.M.16 (s). p. 12), a
contemporary German player who spent the majority of his working life in
Britain.
At the end of the
seventeenth century the Restoration organ voluntary evolved in style and form to
accommodate the new, European baroque idiom. It emerged in the 18th
century in its familiar two-movement structure (slow-fast), as in the
voluntaries of the celebrated London organist, John Stanley. Such pieces reflect
contemporary registration practices, which exploited the solo possibilities of
reeds and flues to imitate the human voice, the virtuosity of treble instruments
and the grand orchestral ceremonial of trumpets, horns and drums. No doubt an
organist was expected to match the musical material of his playing to his choice
of stops. The next group of six pieces (20–25)
demonstrate ways in which this might have been achieved.
20
The vox humana effect (here a solo
reed stop) is called for from bar 14 in the manuscript. The accompanying fonds
d’orgue texture continues from this point only in the left hand and, in
this performance, ends with all four voices on the solo reed.
21
Following the registration indication
in number 20, this fête
champêtre is performed antiphonally between the reeds of the three manuals.
The slur in bar 1 may indicate a ‘scotch-snap’ rhythm. The downward
arpeggios and semi-quaver figures can be found in Italian toccatas from
Stradella and A. Scarlatti onwards and in German organ music by Buxtehude, Böhm
and J.S. Bach.
22
Peter Leech has pointed out that this Fuga appears to be based on the
Gregorian chant Ite Missa est and a later hand has obscured its full title, perhaps to conceal this fact. The
performance registration is inspired by the French dialogue pour les grands jeux, selected from an English stop list
as, perhaps, a contemporary Frenchman might have done—reeds and tierce ranks
with the tremulant drawn throughout. Where the right and left hand solos are
free of accompanying voices, I play these on the louder manual.
23
A récit
for the right hand or, as the English would have called it, a Cornet Voluntary,
which is performed with the melody divided between the great and swell cornets
as an echo. To accommodate this idea further, bar 22 is played twice.
24
The bergamasca is one of the older
dance variation forms in the manuscript and was strongly associated with Italian
and North German players. It is performed with a récit
de nasard registration.
25
This lovely piece mixes chaconne-like
rhythms with a ground-bass structure. The basic harmonic shape is I–VI–
IV–V. The ground structure is less rigid after bar 21. As with 23
and 24, the right hand becomes
more ornate as the piece goes on and divides into smaller note values. The
texture (right hand melody, often high, contrasted with a low, two-part left
hand accompaniment) is typical of many mid-seventeenth-century English
sources, such as Musicks Hand-maid,
1663 and 1678.
26-28
Suite in D major. It seems very likely that suites of dances were played not
only on plucked keyboards but also on the organ, certainly in the domestic
setting, and it is suggested here, that they were also played on church organs,
if not in divine service, then when demonstrating the instrument in a
non-liturgical context, as organists were frequently required to do. The dance
style was a common currency at this time and, given that it finds free
expression in all types of Baroque Music, it must have influenced improvised
liturgical music, too—if not in name, then in spirit. The registrations chosen
here are the great open diapason (the foundation of the entire instrument and its
true ‘voice’) and the various flutes of 8’ and 4’ pitches. The
variations of 27 and 28
(Leech's revised edition, 2009,
numbers these variation 27b and 28b respectively) are interpolated within the repeat scheme of each half of the original courante
and sarabande (the latter, so called in the manuscript). For the rest of the
manuscript each variation has been recorded as a separate piece and in
Selosse’s order—that is, following the dance upon which each is based.
The concluding pieces,
also dances, do not fit the homogeneous arrangement of the suites according to
key. The brief allemande in F major 29
stands somewhat alone while the next piece, an allemande in G minor 30,
is expanded and developed in its companion variation (Leech's
edition numbers the variation 30b) which also shows
distinctive similarities to the division techniques of John Robert's earlier
style (US-NYp Drexel 5611). The two allemandes in C minor, 31
and 32, are both described in the
Hogwood MS as being ‘fitt
for the manicorde’ (i.e. for the
clavichord). Peter Leech's revised edition
(2009) numbers the variation of piece 32, 32b.
Predominantly
a four-part, consort texture, 32 has
a sequential passage at the start of the second part which is closely related to
the equivalent section of 33, an
Allemande and variation in F major
(Peter Leech's revised edition, 2009,
numbers the variation 33b
The performing edition used in this recording
The edition used in this recording was specially prepared by Terence Charlston will full permission of Peter Leech. Thanks are due to Peter Leech for allowing full access to his manuscript and to Heather Windram for meticulously checking the text.
The Selosse Manuscript. Seventeenth-Century Jesuit Keyboard Music, ed. P. Leech (Bicester, 2008/rev. ed. 2009) is available from Edition HH Ltd.
The Leech first edition ('Leech 1', 2008 but withdrawn) and revised edition ('Leech 2', 2009) use different numbering systems. This table shows how the two systems correspond:
List of contents of the Selosse Manuscript
List of contents of the Selosse Manuscript |
||||
No. |
Title / Key / Location (pp.) |
Composer |
Leech 1 |
Leech 2 |
1 |
[Variations on La Folia] [d] 1–24 |
|
1 |
1 |
2 |
[Ciaccona] [C] 25–35 |
|
2 |
2 |
3 |
[The King's Hunt] [G] 36–44 |
John Bull |
3 |
3 |
4 |
[Toccata] [g] 45–51 |
|
4 |
4 |
|
[Suite in C major] |
|
|
|
5a |
‘Courante’ 52–53 |
|
5 |
5 |
5b |
‘variation’ [C] 54–55 |
|
5b |
5b |
6a |
‘Sarabande’ 56–57 |
|
6 |
6 |
6b |
‘variation’ [C] 58–61 |
|
6b |
6b |
|
[Suite in F major] |
|
|
|
7 |
[Allemande] [F] 62–63 |
|
7 |
7 |
8 |
[Sarabande] [F] 64–65 |
|
8 |
8 |
9 |
[Variation 1] [F] 66–67 |
|
9 |
9 |
10 |
[Variation 2] [F] 68–69 |
|
10 |
10 |
11 |
[Variation 3] [F] 70–73 |
|
11 |
11 |
12 |
[Chaconne] [C] 74–79 |
|
12 |
12 |
|
[Suite in G major and minor] |
|
|
|
13 |
‘allemande’ [G] 80–81 |
John Roberts? |
13 |
13 |
14a |
[Courante] [G] 82–83 |
John Roberts? |
14 |
14 |
14b |
‘variation’ [G] 84–85 |
John Roberts? |
15 |
14b |
15a |
[Courante] [g] 86–87 |
John Roberts? |
16 |
15 |
15b |
[Variation] [g] 88–89 |
John Roberts? |
16b |
15b |
|
[Suite in D major] |
|
|
|
16 |
[Prelude] [D] 90 |
|
17 |
16 |
17 |
[Allemande] / [D] 91–92 |
John Roberts? |
18 |
17 |
18 |
[Hornpipe or Rant] [D] 93–94 |
|
19 |
18 |
19 |
[Menuet] [D] 94–95 |
|
20 |
19 |
20 |
[Toccata] / [b.18]‘Vox Humana’ 96–97 |
|
21 |
20 |
21 |
‘The hunting Lesson’ [G] 98–109 |
|
22 |
21 |
22 |
‘Fuga’ [Ite missa est] [D] 110–115 |
|
23 |
22 |
23 |
[Recit de Cornet] 116–118 [C] |
|
24 |
23 |
24 |
[Bergamasca] [G] 118–120 |
|
25 |
24 |
25 |
[Chaconne] [F] 121–123 |
|
26 |
25 |
|
[Suite in D major] |
|
|
|
26 |
[Allemande] [D] 124–125 |
|
27 |
26 |
27 |
[Courante] [D] 126–130 |
|
28 |
27 |
|
[Variation] [D] |
|
28b |
27b |
28 |
‘Sarabande’ [D] 130–132 |
|
29 |
28 |
|
[Variation] [D] |
|
|
28b |
29 |
[Allemande] [F] 133–134 |
|
30 |
29 |
30a |
[Allemande] [g] 135 |
|
31 |
30 |
30b |
[Variation] [g] 136–137 |
|
|
30b |
31 |
[Allemande] [c] 138–140 |
Both inscribed 'An Allemande fitt for the Manicorde' in M1471, nos. 42 and 43. |
32 |
31 |
32 |
[Allemande] [c] 140–141 |
33 |
32 |
|
33a |
[Allemande] [F] 143 |
|
35 |
33 |
33b |
[Variation] [F] 144–145 |
|
36 |
33b |