The academic complexities of rediscovering Brumel's lost verses
When Laurie Stras came across some unexpected polyphonic settings in a Florentine manuscript, she soon discovered she was on the brink of a significant academic discovery. The stunning lost verses of Antoine Brumel’s Lamentations of Jeremiah have now been recorded by Musica Secreta for Obsidian Records, due for release on November 1.
In two new posts on Musica Secreta’s website, Laurie Stras has provided the full liner notes for the new disc, as well as an extensive supplementary essay for those interested in the academic questions of notation, historical context and liturgy that her extraordinary discovery raises. You can find a short quotation from her essay below.
“The earliest polyphonic settings of Lamentations verses date from the beginning of the fifteenth century, but they are relatively unusual until the end of the fifteenth and the turn of the sixteenth century, when – it is believed – the practice of singing Lamentations became popular, particularly in Florence. Polyphonic lamentations were used in churches, but they were also valued by the quasi-religious brotherhoods, or confraternities, to which the male population of Florence belonged. Confraternities sponsored all forms of secular cultural activity – music, visual arts, literature, drama – but they were also places of private worship and devotion. An important secondary function was the education of Florence’s boys, providing them with both spiritual guidance and a place to exercise their creativity, which in turn formed the next generation of the Florentine elite.
Brumel’s Lamentations appear to be a product of this fusion of piety and culture. Unusually, they set a complete series of nineteen verses; the series itself is also atypical. The first seventeen verses are those that were eventually allocated to Good Friday in the standardised Roman liturgy, but the final two verses appear in only two among the thousands of surviving breviaries from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The whole is well over 1000 bars long and lasts almost forty-five minutes in performance. The length of the work and the choice of verses seem almost self-consciously remarkable, particularly for a work composed at sometime between around 1480 and around 1520. (Note: Brumel’s death date of 1512-1513 has always been just an assumption – there may be good reason to believe he lived beyond this point, and was in some way connected with the Medici in Florence and/or Rome.)
What makes this already highly unusual setting unique, however, is that it has five refrains, not three. The verses are also divided differently to the liturgy, with the refrains placed so that Brumel’s music would need significant adaptation if it were to be used in a service.”
From Darkness Into Light
Antoine Brumel: The Complete Lamentations of Jeremiah for Good Friday
Released by Obsidian Records, 1 November 2019
Now available for pre-order on Amazon and Presto Classical