Dufay: Missa L'homme armé; Supremum est mortalibus bonum
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Composer: Guillaume DufayComposer: French Anonymous
Composer: Gregorian Chant
Conductor: Jeremy Summerly
Performer: Oxford Camerata
Orchestra: Oxford Camerata
Performer: Carys-Anne Lane
Performer: Rebecca Outram
Performer: James Gilchrist
Performer: Robin Blaze
Performer: Robert Evans
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1995-06-27
Music Label: Naxos
Soundtracks:
- Supremum est mortalibus bonum: L'homme arme
- Supremum est mortalibus bonum: Kyrie
- Supremum est mortalibus bonum: Gloria
- Supremum est mortalibus bonum: Veni Sancte Spiritus
- Supremum est mortalibus bonum: Credo
- Supremum est mortalibus bonum: Jubilate Deo
- Supremum est mortalibus bonum: Sanctus
- Supremum est mortalibus bonum: Agnus Dei
- Supremum est mortalibus bonum: Illumina faciem tuam
- Supremum est mortalibus bonum
Music reviews of Dufay: Missa L'homme armé; Supremum est mortalibus bonum
Music Review: The Masters' Masses were not for the Masses
Rating: 5 Stars
Masses composed around the melody of the song L'Homme Arme (the Armed Man) are almost a genre onto themselves. Musicologically speaking, they are 'parody' masses, that is, polyphony compositions using the melodic themes and harmonic structures of a pre-existing chanson, often one with a secular text. Due partly to the odd jaunty quality of the L'Homme Arne theme, all of these masses are exceptionally colorful in rhythm and voicing, more sumptuous than pious, more flamboyant than devotional - a liturgical call to arms. Virtually every major composer of the 15th and 16th centuries wrote one; amazon currently lists performances of L'Homme Arme masses by Dufay, Busnois, Ockeghem, Josquin, Obrecht, de la Rue, Senfl, and Palestrina, as well as less well-known composers like Robert Carver, Mattheus Pipelare, Johannes Tinctoris, Juan de Anchieta, Johannes Regis, Cristobal Morales, and Mathurin Forestier.
Why so many? It used to be supposed that the composers felt motivated by professional competition and/or eagerness to meet a sublime challenge to their skills. There may well be truth to that notion, but a more practical factor is almost certainly involved. Such masses were written on commission, for pecuniary reward, and the commissions for these masses, as far as we know, came entirely from very potent patrons - kings, dukes, archbishops and such, the movers-and-shakers of Renaissance Europe - and most of these patrons were prominent members of an international confraternity called The Order of the Golden Fleece, which held convocations at significant times and places. A modern analogy might be the annual convocation of big shots at Bohemian Grove in northern California, although as far as I know the Bohemian Club has never commissioned a significant piece of music. The Golden Fleece had its own theme song, which was... L'Homme Arme!
I've never heard a L'Homme Arme mass that I didn't like. Obviously not all performances are equally successful, but the challenge of composing a new mass in full awareness of the greatness of previous compositions does seem to have inspired people. Dufay's L'Homme Arme was composed in the 1460s, at a time when Dufay was wealthy and renowned, and approaching old age. Interestingly, it shows the master being strongly influenced by his own disciples; Dufay extends his usual sweet Burgundian polyphony to match the riotous mannerism of younger men like Busnois and Ockeghem. Even so, Dufay's melodic delicacy survives in this most rhythmically electrifying context, making his L'Homme Arme one of the most accessible to modern listeners.
The Oxford Camerata performance begins with a unison chanting of the basic L'Homme Arme melody, a helpful gesture for the uninitiated listener. Then director Jeremy Summerly chooses to separate the movements of the mass with chanted monophonic antiphons, an authentic liturgical parctice, and to conclude the performance with the polyphonic motet Supremum est Mortalibus Bonum, written by the much younger Dufay in about 1430. It's a good choice, allowing the listener to hear the compositional distance Dufay and his disciples had traversed in thirty years.
The Oxford Camerata is a choir twelve voices, men and women, all Britons, bearing such charming British names as Alison Coldstream and Julian Smallbones. It's an excellent choir - better I think than the Tallis Scholars and other similar ensembles, having clearer diction and an more incisive collective timbre - and although I'd prefer to hear this mass performed in recording by singers one on a part, I'm certainly pleased with this CD and recommend it heartily.
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