Music Bridging Divided Religions: The Motet in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic by

Frits Noske
Review by: Robert L. Kendrick
Notes, Second Series, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Sep., 1992), pp. 89-91
Published by: Music Library Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/897198 .
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Book Reviews 89

Madrigalchor Muinster, Renaissance the churches of San Miguelito, Mag-

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SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Music Bridging Divided Religions: important"(p. 8). He does so by examining

The Motet in the Seventeenth-Cen. a single repertory: printed Latin-texted
tury Dutch Republic. By Frits Noske, music published by composers workingin
2 vols. (Paperbacks on Musicology the Netherlands (I deliberatelyleave the
region unqualified, for reasons to be ad-
10- 11) Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noet-
duced presently)between the years 1631
zel Verlag, 1989. [548 p. (continuous and 1700. Noske's thesisis that this music,
pagination). ISBN 3-7959-0458-7, 3- despite its texts,was performedin the col-
7959-0459-5. DM96.00.] legia musicaof the cities of the Dutch Re-
public, and served as an artisticlink be-
What student of a particular aspect ol tween Calvinistand Catholic worlds. With
cultural historyhas not wondered aboui thisbook, Noske caps a long (though little-
parallel creative activityin the other arts? appreciated) career in the editing and
How many musicologists, for instance study of this almost unknown repertory;
know very much about Viennese painting and for this-and especially for the "Cat-
in the age of Mozart and Beethoven? In the alogue of Extant Motets, Masses and Lit-
preface to Music BridgingDividedReligions, anies" as well as for the sixteenmotettran-
FritsNoske stateshis goal of redressingthe scriptionsthat comprise volume 2 of the
neglect of one such area-to counter the monograph-we owe him our gratitude.
"prejudiced view" that "the musical pro. However, there are a number of disqui-
duction of the Dutch 'golden age' is un- eting featuresabout the aims and methods

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90 NOTES, September 1992

of the study.Noske organizeshis discussion and quintessentiallybourgeois culture of

in traditionalcomposer-orientedmanner: the (northern) Netherlands' Golden Age.
three chapters on the social, religious,and The book's musical analysisis character-
musical background, eleven chapters on ized by a similar mixture of insight and
various composers and their works,an in- idiosyncracy.It is far from easy to write
terveningchapter on the genre of the di- intelligently about seventeenth-century
alogue, and two appendixes. The relevant music, and it redounds to Noske's credit
composers are (withthe dates of theirpub- that he is often concerned with musical
lications): Herman Hollanders (1631, strategiesof text-setting, and that he em-
1634); Cornelis Padbrue (1640); Jacobus ploys modal analysis, not anachronistic
Haffner (1647); Constantijn Huygens Rameau-styleterminology,for most of the
(1647); Jan Baptist Verrijt (1649); Jo- repertory(roughly,up to the worksof Hac-
hannes van Geertsom(1661); Benedictus a quart and the later works of Benedictus).
Sancto Josepho (1666, 1673, 1677, 1678, On the other hand, the prospect of dis-
1683, 1699/1700); Carel Hacquart (1674); cussing large quantitiesof music (e.g., the
and Servaes de Koninck (1699). Yet, as Ru- masses of Benedictus's op. 1, pp. 155-56)
dolf Rasch has pointed out in a telling (if oftenelicitsfairlysuperficialsequential de-
occasionallyfussy)review(Tijdschrift van de scriptionsof word-painting("the Resurrec-
Vereniging voorNederlandseMuziekgeschiede- tion [in the Credo] is announced by a lively
nis 41 [1991]: 135-40), both Hollanders Allegro passage of the violins introducing
and Benedictus worked outsidethe (admit- the melodic materialof the two sopranos").
tedly changing) borders of the Dutch Whateverthe problemsof the book, non-
Republic-Hollanders in Spanish-occupied committalfacelessnessin criticaljudgments
Breda (1625-37) and Benedictus in a Car- is not among them. Noske's studies of this
melite monasteryin Boxmeer in the inde- repertoryhave led him to certain clearly
pendent Catholic county of Den Bergh. articulatedlikes (Huygens,Verrijt)and dis-
The output of these two figuresrepresents likes (Haffner,Geertsom). But even here,
over half of the repertorythatNoske takes questions of consistency must be asked:
into account. whyis the clumsyvoice-leadingof Haffner
There are other puzzling aspects to the to be condemned (pp. 83-84), while par-
book as well. Noske's groupingof worksby allel fifthsand cross-relationsin Benedictus
virtue of their (Latin) texts allows him to are considered signs of originality (pp.
discuss the humanist and rhetoricalback- 151-54)? Example 52, for Noske a "typical
ground to the musical settings,and this example of Benedictus' daring texture,"
approach is effectivein the discussion of containsblatant(and repeated) parallel sec-
the Latin items from Huygens's Pathodia, onds as 'incorrect'as anythingto be found
works with which Noske obviously feels in Haffner.
great sympathy.But, given the chronolog- Noske's section on Italian influence(pp.
ical orderingof the book, it resultsin some 42-45) could profitablybe carried further
curious juxtapositions: Hollanders's litur- intothe discussionof individualcomposers.
gical and Roman (even occasionally "Je- Thus, Hollanders's works, besides repre-
suit") motetsrub shoulders withPadbrues sentinga "conservative"concertatostyle(as
ecumenical, stile antico canonical experi- Noske pointsout), share a numberof char-
ment,Da pacem,Domine.Similarly,Noske's acteristics (moderate length, stylized
insightfuldiscussion of rhetoricand struc- sixteenth-noteruns at the ends of phrases,
ture in Huygens's Latin monodies is fol- eschewal of triple-timesections) with Ro-
lowed by a word-paintinganalysisof Ver- man concertosof the 1620s. Similarly,Ver-
rijt's Italianate collection. In terms of the rijt's 1649 motets bear the traces of the
book's centralthesis,the upshot is twofold: "new style" northern-Italianmotet of the
(1) it is by no means clear, despite Noske's 1640s-quick declamation, alternationbe-
summaryof the collegiamusica,that much tween duple- and triple-timesections,long
of thismusic actuallyserved an ecumenical and melodically surprising passage-work,
functionin the Dutch Republic, and (2) it and a preference for altus-tenor-bassus
is difficult to consider some of these scoring in three-voice concertos. All of
musicians-with the notable exception of these featuresare found in the output of
Huygens-as part of the urban, humanist, such figuresas Gasparo Casati, Orazio Tar-

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Book Reviews 91

diti, and Francesco della Porta, and it is ited by John S. Powell. (Publications of
perhaps no coincidencethatthe workof all The Early Music Institute.) Blooming-
threewas available in the Low Countriesby ton: Indiana University Press, 1991.
1650 due to the Phalese reprintsin Ant- [xvii, 155 p. ISBN 0-253-34561-8
werp. As Noske claims,Verrijtis clearlyan
inventivecomposer, but he should also be (pbk.). $14.95.]
considered in the stylisticcontext of the
decade. There are some ten works dealing with
Noske's study raises some questions too the art of playingthe bassecontinuewritten
broad for his perforcelimitedconspectus. (though not all printed) in France before
For instance, the 1674 Cantionessacrae of 1725. These two translations bring the
the Amsterdammer(and thus presumably number of them available in modern En-
Calvinist) Hacquart contain six settingsof glishup to five.Of the remainder,the texts
passages from Thomas a Kempis's Imitatio of J. Henry D'Anglebert's "Principes de
Christi,the most popular of late medieval l'Accompagnement" (in Pieces de Clavecin,
devotionaltexts.Was therean ongoing tra- Paris, 1689) and, apart from a few pages
ditionof the devotiomodernathatcut across of preface,Jean Francois Dandrieu's Princ-
denominational lines in the Netherlands, ipes de l'Accompagnement du Clavecin(Paris,
and is this reflectedin composers' choices 1718 or '19) consist of brief captions for
of motet texts? Noske's study prepares musical examples and so hardly call for
some of the ground for the more special- special publication in English, important
ized research that needs to be done. though they are. Francois Couperin's
Given the necessarily limited (though manuscript "Regle pour l'accompagne-
representativelybroad) selection of tran- ment" (from the 1690s) has yet to receive
scriptionsin volume 2, Music BridgingDi- a presentationin English.
videdReligionswill best serve readers with The tutors of first-ratecomposers such
access to the volumes of Monumenta Mu- as D'Anglebert, Couperin, and Marc-
sica Neerlandica containing some of the AntoineCharpentier(MS, "Regles de Com-
other music discussed by Noske (MMN 12: position"of ca. 1692) are naturallythe ones
all of Hollanders's survivingworks; MMN thatperformerswill turn to in the hope of
15: motets from Benedictus's 1683 Enco- findinganswers to the all-importantques-
mia; MMN 17: mostof Verrijt's1649 Flam- tions of rhetoric, rather than grammar.
mae divinae). Small libraries may want to Some elementsof styleare covered by De-
think twice before paying the exorbitant nis Delair (ways of arpeggiating chords)
price (for a paperback edition) affixedby and Michel de Saint-Lambert(in the gen-
the publisher.But Noske's book does open eral remarksof his finalchapter,"Du Gout
up a hithertolittle-knownrepertory,and de l'Accompagnement"). But their main
for that alone it is worth its cost. value is in detailing the harmonic conven-
ROBERTL. KENDRICK tions of the French stylewhich,because it
New YorkUniversity is so cohesive, are not always reflectedin
the notationof repertory.Some composers,
such as Couperin, notated more or less ex-
Accompaniment on Theorbo and actlywhat they meant. But others, partic-
Harpsichord: Denis Delair's Treatise ularlyin the seventeenthcentury,relied on
of 1690. A TranslationwithCommen- the conventions. The harmony of, say,
taryby CharlotteMattax. (Publications Michel de la Barre is not necessarilyso
of The Early Music Institute.)Bloom- much less richthan Couperin's; itjust looks
simplerbecause he relied on the shorthand
ington: Indiana University Press, conventions of figuring. Detailing this
1991. [xii, 164 p. ISBN 0-253-28592-5 shorthandis the value of the grammarel-
(pbk.). $14.95.] ement of these two tutors.
Delair's tutor is particularlyuseful be-
A New Treatise on Accompaniment cause of the unusual, but veryconvenient,
withthe Harpsichord, the Organ, and way it is organized. It begins with an
with other Instruments.By Monsieur eleven-page "Principes d'Accompagne-
de Saint Lambert. Translated and ed- ment,"oddly subtitled"pour ceux qui com-

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