Jacobus de Kerle Preces Speciales Primum Responsorium Pro Concilio
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
- These "Special Prayers for the Success of the General Council" were commissioned by Cardinal Otto, Lord High Steward of Waldburg, and Bishop of Augsburg, and written for the Council of Trent (1545 - 1563). This gathering affected and re-defined many religious, political, and cultural aspects of life in countries where the Roman Catholic Church predominated. In regards to music, the Council was concerned with simplifying the polyphonic style to make texts more easily understandable to the laity, and with eliminating "impure" influences such as basing a mass on a cantus firmus that was in fact a popular or secular folktune, which was mostly the practice at the time. But many of these reforms in fact initiated aesthetic and religious tensions, reflected in such unsettling works as Orlando di Lasso's Lagrime di San Pietro (The Tears of St. Peter) or Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Liberated).
In these prayer settings, Kerle combined aspects of Flemish counterpoint and Italian style to produce a harmonically striking style with sudden changes of texture while still employing clear, lean modal practice. Each mode used was programmatically associated with a specific aspect of Christian practice: for example, the "primo tono" with peace and justice, the Phrygian mode with repentance, the "quinto tono" with spiritual re-birth, and the "ottavo tono" with the longing for compassion.
The ten prayers for the "Preces Speciales" were written between 1551 and 1562 by the Dominican Petrus de Soto, who was a professor of theology at Dillingen. The texts are based on various Biblical passages, quoted or paraphrased, that reflected the concerns of the Council, and were grouped together in the ten larger sections or responses: Nos. 1, 2, 3 "Pro Concilio" (For the Council), Nos. 4, 5 "Pro Populi Christiani unione" (For the union of the Christian people), No. 6 "Pro remissione peccatorum" (For the remission of error), Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10 "Contra Ecclesiae hostium furorem" (Against the fury of the Church's enemies).
Each of the ten responses contains a "corpus," "versus" I, II, and III, and a concluding "Gloria Patri - Kyrie." For example, the Fifth Responsory contains "Corpus: Simus, Domine, renati omnes consummati in unum" (Let us all who are reborn, O Lord, become perfect in a single unity), the "Versus primus: Sit multitudinis christianorum cor unum et anima uuna" (Versus I: May the multitudes of Christians be united in thought and in soul), the "Versus secundus: Sis tu, Domine, nobis unus deus et pater omnium" (Versus II: May You, O Lord, be our only God and the Father of us all), the "Versus tertius: Non sit, Domine, in corpore tuo schisma" (Versus III: Let there be no division, O Lord, in your body), and the "Gloria Patri" (Glory be to the Father...) and "Sequuntur preces: Kyrie, Christie, Kyrie" (Prayer sequence: Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy).
Apparently, these settings were well-received and sung in the assemblies three times a week.
Vox Hesperia and Romano Vettori
I love de Kerle. Thank you so much for uploading this rare and refined artist.
I've got two CDs of the music de Kerle composed winging their way to me as I type this as a result of you posting this; many thanks for providing such gems!
Incredible Beauty - uplifting!😇
Thank you for upload and especially for the detailed explanation. The connection between music and liturgical actions and meaning is stunning. It's unbelievable that this incredible treasure was lost in merely 50 years (1970 to present), even more unbelievable if one considers that Sacrosantum Concilium (1962) constitution expressely recommendend latin and gregorian chant being at the center of liturgy. What treasure has been stolen from us!
I would add to your point by saying that even before Vatican II, these types of sacred liturgical treasures were already very much in the process of being taken away, piece by piece. The Council of Trent itself set the standard for later reforms, as the Vatican began exercising greater and greater centralized bureaucratic control over the sacred liturgy. If you take a look at the earlier liturgies in common use all throughout Europe before that time (like the uses of Sarum, Paris, Benevento, Augsburg, etc), it immediately becomes apparent that medieval worship was far more musically rich, ritually symbolic, and theologically substantive than what the Roman Rite would become after the reforms of Trent. This ongoing obsession with "reform" in the Catholic Church continued at a steady pace all the way up to the modern era, culminating in the Novus Ordo liturgy and all of its generic committee-approved banality.
Wonderful Jacobus de Kerle
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