Gaspar van Weerbeke

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Gaspar van Weerbeke (* around 1445 in Oudenaarde , Flanders ; † after 1517 in Mainz (uncertain)) was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of the Renaissance .

Live and act

Gaspar van Weerbeke was born out of wedlock and grew up in the Franco-Flemish region. There is no information about his spiritual or musical training, but it is believed that he received his training at the Maîtrise of St. Walburga in Oudenaarde.

Reliable information is only available from his time in Milan, where he entered the service of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza in the winter of 1471/72 and soon became the most influential member of the choir. In addition to his work as a singer and composer, from January 1472 he was actively engaged in recruiting new singers for the ducal band. While his colleagues were looking for new singers in Ferrara , Rome and Naples , Gaspar seems to have made trips to Burgundy , France and his homeland for this purpose from April 1472 and from January 18, 1473 . A few years later, the Milan court orchestra was one of the most outstanding institutions of its kind in Italy. An inventory of the chapel from July 15, 1474 attests to 18 cantori di camera (chamber singers) under Weerbeke's direction ("vice-abbate") and 22 cantori di cappella (chapel singers) under the direction of Antonio Guinati. The newly recruited members of this ensemble also included Loyset Compère , Jehan Fresneau and Johannes Martini , who, in addition to Weerbeke, contributed compositions. The Duke was very satisfied with Gaspar and gave him lucrative benefits in the course of his service , including a pension of 40 ducats on the preposition of San Lorenzo in Lodi .

After the Duke's assassination on December 26, 1476, the Milan court chapel began to decline after the Duke's widow decided to make the chapel smaller. Many members of the band had to leave it, including Compère and Fresneau, and found a new job in Ferrara at the court of d'Este . Weerbeke, on the other hand, remained in the service of the Sforza for four more years and then went to the papal chapel in Rome in the winter of 1480/81. He stayed there until mid-April 1489. His most important colleagues here were Josquin Desprez and Marbriano de Orto . During this time he also received an offer to return to the Milanese court, which he turned down in April 1482. Like many other papal singers, he became a member of the Fraternità di Santo Spirito e Santa Maria in Saxia in May 1483 .

In April 1489 Gaspar returned to Milan, where meanwhile Ludovico Sforza , known as "Il Moro", ruled; he took up his previous duties here and again went on trips to Florence and his homeland to hire new band members. In his hometown of Oudenaarde he was received with great honors as "sanckmeester van den herthoge van melanen". Disagreements between Gaspar and his employer emerge from a letter from the latter to the singer and composer Jean Cordier, which concerned an unauthorized departure from Milan by Weerbeke and the poor quality of a committed singer. In the 1490s the composer had connections to the court orchestra of Philip the Fair (reign 1482-1506) in Burgundy, where he, like his colleague Pierre de la Rue , sang in the duke's Grande Chapelle, which resulted in benefits in the dioceses of Utrecht and Thérouanne surrendered. Gaspar also appears in the registers of the Collegiate Church of St. Donatian in Bruges from 1495 to 1498, and during this time he apparently also had contact with the composers at the French court, because his name appears in Guillaume Crétin's Déploration on the death of Johannes Ockeghem 1497 with the names of the other band members. But he remained in the service of Milan until 1499.

The armed conflicts between France and Milan in September 1499 forced Gaspar van Weerbeke to leave Milan for good after the city was captured by French troops. Weerbeke rejected an offer from Ferrara by Duke Ercole I. d'Este from November 1499; he returned to Rome and served as a singer in the papal band from 1500 at least until the end of 1515. In 1514 he joined the brotherhood of Campo Santo dei Teutonici e Fiamminghi in Rome as Dominus Jasper Werbeke Cantor Capellae papalis . On November 1, 1515, Pope Leo X granted him the right to free benefits in the dioceses of Cambrai and Tournai , which brought him 200 gold ducats a year. Towards the end of his life, Gaspar van Weerbeke seems to have gone to Germany: on November 1, 1517, he is recorded as a canon in the files of the Church of Sancta Maria ad Gradus in Mainz . He died soon afterwards in an unknown place.

meaning

Gaspar van Weerbeke's high esteem in Italy is shown by the fact that around two thirds of his surviving works were published by the publisher Ottaviano dei Petrucci . His work focused on the sacred music of the Mass ordinary and the motet . In addition to Loyset Compère, Johannes Martini and other composers, he has created a new type of sacred music with the so-called Motetti missales (motetic pieces in the liturgical locations of the mass parts), which is achieved through a balanced alternation between imitated and homophonic sections as well as a text setting ( Syllabic ). These six- to nine-part groups of motets represent an important intermediate step in the history of the motet to the imitated motet of the Josquin period because of their typesetting features . In his concise compositional technique he abandons the rambling polyphonic play of lines of his Franco-Flemish contemporaries and is obviously of the popular Italian polyphonic models influenced by his adopted home. In his mass “Et trop penser” there are similarities with the mass of the same name by Heinrich Isaac; both refer to early forms of the parody mass .

In his masses, Gaspar van Weerbeke evidently started out from the cantus firmus mass, which Guillaume Dufay exemplified in his later works . In the course of his development, however, he has dealt with the various possibilities of how a given cantus firmus material can be treated and how the parody of polyphonic models can be brought about. He stands out from the aesthetic concepts of his colleagues who stayed in his home country through his sometimes striking text presentation and through the use of compositional means of various origins. In contrast to his colleague Loyset Compère from the Milan court orchestra, Gaspar van Weerbeke has little inclination towards extravagant experiments in composition, but rather strives for rounded forms that go back to traditional patterns and whose novelty is based on Franco-Flemish and popular-Italian Combine style elements in a balanced way.

Works

Complete edition : Gaspar van Weerbeke. Collected Works , edited by G. Croll / Eric F. Fiedler / Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, Neuhausen 1998.

  • Masses and mass sentences (all with four voices)
    • Missa "Ave regina coelorum", 1507
    • Missa brevis
    • Missa "Et trop penser", 1507
    • Missa "N'as tu pas veux", 1509
    • Missa octavi toni, 1507
    • Missa "O Venus banth", 1507
    • Missa "Princesse d'amourettes"
    • Missa "Se mieulx ne vient"
    • Creed, 1505
    • Credo Cardinale, 1505
  • Motet cycles (Motetti missales; all four parts)
    • "Ave mundi domina", consisting of:
      • Ave mundi domina
      • Ave mater gloriosa
      • Salve virgo virginum
      • Anima mea liquefacta est
      • Ave regina caelorum, ave
      • Quem terra pontus aethera
      • O virginum praeclara
      • Fit porta Christi
    • "Quam pulchra es", consisting of
      • Quam pulchra it
      • Alma redemptoris mater
      • Salve virgo salutata
      • O pulcherrima mulierum
      • Ave regina coelorum mater
      • O Maria clausus ortus
      • Mater patris fillia mulierum
      • Tota pulchra es anima mea
    • "In honorem Sancti Spiritus", consisting of
      • Spiritus Domini replevit orbem
      • Veni Sancte Spiritus
      • Beata gens cuius est Dominus
      • Confirma hoc Deus
      • Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis gratia
      • Loquebantur variis linguis
      • Factus est repente de caelo
  • Magnificat and Lamentations
    • Magnificat octavi toni to four voices
    • Lamentationes Jeremiae for four voices, 1506
  • Motets
    • “Adonay sanctissime Domine Deus” to four votes
    • “ Anima Christi sanctifica me” for four voices, 1503
    • “Ave domina sancta Maria” for four voices, 1502
    • “Ave mater omnium” for four voices, 1505
    • “Ave regina caelorum”, tenor motets for four voices
    • “Ave stella matutina” for four voices, 1505
    • “Ave verum corpus” for four voices, 1503
    • “Christi mater ave sanctissima” for four votes, 1502
    • “Dulcis amica Dei digna” / “Da pacem Domine”, tenor motets for five voices, 1508
    • “Ibo mihi ad montem mirrhe” for four voices, 1502
    • “Mater digna Dei” for four voices, 1502
    • “O beate Sebastiane” for four voices, 1505
    • "O pulcherrima mulierum surge" in four parts, 1502
    • “ Panis angelicus ” for four voices, 1503; anonymous as "Ave panis angelorum", 1508 (assignment uncertain)
    • “Salve sancta parens” to four voices, 1505
    • “Stabat mater dolorosa” / “Vidi speciosam”, tenor motets with five voices
    • “Tenebrae factae sunt” to four voices, 1503
    • “Verbum caro factum est” for four voices, 1503; anonymously as "O inextimabilis" or "Ave nostra salus", 1503
    • “Vidi speciosam sicut columbam” for four voices, 1502
    • “Virgo Maria, non est tibi similis” for four voices, 1502
  • Chansons (attribution partly uncertain)
    • “Bon temps” / “Adieu mes amours” with four voices, incomplete
    • “Que fait le cocu au bois” for four voices, incomplete
    • "Vray Dieu que payne m'esse" for four voices, 1504 (also ascribed to Compère and Pipelare )
    • "Sans regretz" to three voices (partly attributed to "Jaspar")
  • Works with different author attributions
    • "Ave panis angelorum" (revision of "Panis angelicus", 1508)
    • "Ce n'est pas sans" and "Du bon du cueur" (similarities with "La stangetta")
    • “La stangetta” for three parts (instrumental composition), attributed to “Uurbech”, in other sources also Isaac and Obrecht
    • Missa "Une mousse de Biscaye"
    • "O inextimabilis", "Ave nostra salus", 1508 (revisions to "Verbum caro factum est")
    • "O Venus bant" to three voices (attributed to Gaspar and Josquin)
    • "Plaine d'ennuy" / "Anima mea"

Literature (selection)

  • K. Jeppesen: The polyphonic Italian Laude around 1500 , Leipzig 1935
  • W. Wegner: Analysis of the fair O Venus Banth , dissertation at the University of Marburg 1940
  • G. Croll: Gaspar van Weerbeke: an Outline of His Life and Works. In: Musica disciplina No. 6, 1952, pages 67-81
  • The same: The Motettenwerk Gaspars van Weerbeke , dissertation at the University of Göttingen 1954
  • RJ Sherr: The Papal Chapel ca. 1492–1513 and Its Polyphonic Sources , PhD thesis at Princeton University 1975
  • Eric F. Fiedler: Heinrich Finck, Gaspar van Weerbeke and the goddess Venus: Contribution to the cantus firmus practice in the early 16th century. In: Festschrift for H. Osthoff, edited by L. Finscher, Tutzing 1979, pages 29–55 (= Frankfurt Contributions to Musicology No. 11)
  • D. Kämper: La stangetta: an instrumental composition by Gaspar van Weerbeke. In: Festschrift for H. Hüschen, edited by D. Altenburg, Cologne 1980, pages 277–288
  • AW Atlas / J. Alden: Article Jean Japart. In: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie, London 1980
  • Andrea Lindmayr: The Gaspar van Weerbeke complete edition: Addenda et Corrigenda to the catalog raisonné. In: Festschrift for G. Croll, edited by W. Gratzer / Andrea Lindmayr, Laaber 1992, pp. 51–64
  • The same: Gaspar van Weerbeke and the Motet “Sancti Spiritus adsit nobis”. In: Musica disciplina No. 46, 1992, pages 105-131
  • Patrick Macey: Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Musical Patronage in Milan: Compère, Weerbeke and Josquin. In: Early Music History. Vol. 15, 1996, pp. 147-212, doi : 10.1017 / S0261127900001546 .
  • Eric F. Fiedler: The Masses of Gaspar van Weerbeke , Schneider, Tutzing 1997, ISBN 978-3-7952-0888-2 (= Frankfurt Contributions to Musicology No. 26)
  • PA and LLM Merkley: Music and Patronage in the Sforza Court , Turnhout 1999 (= Studi sulla storia della musica in Lombardia collana di testi musicologici No. 3)
  • Paul Kolb / Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl (eds.): Gaspar Van Weerbeke. New Perspectives on His Life and Music , Turnhout: Brepols 2019, ISBN 978-2-503-58454-6 .

Web links

swell

  1. ^ Heinz-Jürgen Winkler:  Gaspar van Weerbeke. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 17 (Vina - Zykan). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-7618-1137-5  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
  2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 8: Štich - Zylis-Gara. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1982, ISBN 3-451-18058-8 .
personal data
SURNAME Gaspar van Weerbeke
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gaspar van Werbeke
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Flemish composer and singer of the Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH around 1455
PLACE OF BIRTH Oudenaarde , Flanders
DATE OF DEATH after 1517
Place of death uncertain: Mainz