Caesar vive! Prague 1609. Music for Emperor Rudolf II.

Caesar vive! Prague 1609. Music for Emperor Rudolf II.

(Luython, Monte, de Santa Maria, Harant z Polzic a Bezdruzic, Sales, Luzzaschi, Maier, Cavazzoni, Rore, Orologio, Fatorini, Regnart)

Fraternitas Litteratorum, Stanislav Predota--artistic director, Martin Horyna.

Production: not stated. Text: Cz, Eng., Ger., Fr. Recorded: 2/2006, Chapel of the Chateau of Brandys nad Labem. Released: 2007.

TT: 55:49. DDD. 1 CD Supraphon SU 3898-2.

There are many repeated reports of the eccentricity of Rudolf II (1552-1612), whether in connection with politics or occultism. We do not as yet understand the arguments of the chroniclers of the time, however, since the basis on which the character assessments were made seems slender in terms of real information. Yet evidence more valuable than the reports of Rudolf's behaviour in terms of protocol and etiquette glimmers between the lines of Rudolf's closest associates or spurned functionaries of the imperial court. In the light of this evidence we can discern the natural features of Rudolf's character and psychological make-up, which were not only crucial for his time but were to project themselves in full only in the distant future. The historian Robert Evans made the best assessment when he noted Rudolf's court was full of the best diplomats, artists and learned men of their time, and a mere eccentric with a tendency to succumb to melancholia would hardly have been capable of attracting them there. Rudolf as a man showed marked maturity in all the branches mentioned and considered from the point of view of modern psychoanalysis it is clear that he had more than a touch of universal genius which then hindered him in practical conduct and decisions. In this environment the Muse of music had a high place, but only the kind of music that could partner emotional and mystical complexity. It was not then music for the liturgy. We have a great deal of evidence for this assertion. We also know that in 1589 Rudolf gave a large sum of money to his deputy cappellmeister Camillo Zanotti as a reward "for return to madrigals", when a new collection of the latter's madrigals came out in the same year, preceded nota bene by a Missarum.

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On the pages of the brilliantly conceived booklet to the new CD--Caesar vive!--, the musicians therefore pose the question of "What could Rudolf II have heard?" if then rather sidelining the question of "How would he have heard it performed?", even though it is only by tackling this latter question that they could hope to gain some deeper insight into deep affect structure. The CD contains a total of 23 numbers, of which 14 are played in the tempo band of 54-56 MM. I really do not understand this monotony of tempo. The pieces concerned are of different genres (mass, motet, canzoneta, songs), with different styles of text (sacred, secular), and in different modes, and to force them into a single template of rhythm is to be insensitive to the materials. In the text of the introductory motet Incipite Domino in Tympanis the psalmist declares "Rejoice, make merry, sing" but the delivery is without excitement and establishes what proves to be the almost unified degree of emotional tension implicit in the tempo arrangement of the CD, without regard to the jubilant Gloria or the introverted Credo. In the mass Super basim-Caesar vive! (it is significant that Super basim is the title of one of the subchapters of the Magie naturalis--1558, in which the author Giambattista della Porta (1535-1615) is concerned with number symbolism) Luython plays with the symbolism of the number 7, which was Rudolf II's number. The mass is essentially a six-part piece, with the seventh voice melodically declaiming the central Latin text of the mass: "Live happily, Emperor! May it be God's will. All the nations cry: Live happy, Emperor!", taken up alternately by Cantus, Altus and most often Tenor part. During the mass the call "Caesar vive!" is repeated 35 times, i.e. the symbolic number 7 multiplied by the number of sections of the mass (5, 7, 14, 7, 2). In fact I envisage the other sing parts revolving around the "Caesar vive!" rather like planets around the sun, almost unnoticed. It is a pity that just this concentric effect created by the outside voices entirely vanishes. The interpretation of Alessandro Orologio's canzoneta Cor mio non mi lasciar (printed in 1594, not 1596, as the booklet states) is a similar case in point. Three entirely different emotional levels emerge out of the sensuously erotic text: dying, weeping, laughter, without nuance of interpretation. Like the paintings of the time, the music is full of deeply experienced symbolism, but this way of seeing has fallen over the course of the next 400 years of harmonised melodies into the depths of hieroglyphic oblivion. On the other hand, the three fugues by Michael Maier are brilliantly performed. The fleeing Atalanta, Hippomenes catching up and his golden apples slowing Atalanta down ... all this acquires a genuinely dramatic dimension, and what is more one that is carefully modeled by the metre of the text. For any understanding of the function of Renaissance music in the culture of the time it is important to realise that non-discursive techniques were considered forces able to move the emotions, an idea reflected in the frequent formulation "Muovere dell' affetti" ("the movement of mind/emotions"). This CD only opens a chink in the door to these powers. Nonetheless, the outstanding voice technique of the members of the choir and painstaking work in the studio gives the CD a quality that guarantees it success.