Vasilissa ergo gaude, how to sing the countertenor and tenor parts
  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    Hi, everyone,

    From the .pdf below, I cannot deduce how the countertenor and tenor parts are to be sung. Does anyone happen to know how to execute this isorhythmic motet?

    http://www.uma.es/victoria/varios/pdf/Dufay-Vasilissa_Ergo_Gaude.pdf

    An available recording on YouTube substitutes something else to the voice.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV8Php5wwcI

    Thanks in advance!
  • Until the mid-1970s, it was assumed that any untexted part in works of Dufay and his contemporaries was played instrumentally. This was less successful than one might imagine, particularly in secular music, because the available string technology and instrument sizes led to dull bass notes in the ranges required. (Organs work a little better.) At about this time, Christopher Page with his group Gothic Voices pioneered all-vocal rendition of this music, in performances so convincing as to itself become an orthodoxy for awhile. Page's arguments were set out primarily in the journal Early Music.

    The options for singing these parts are: 1) vocalized on a vowel ; 2) sung on the words of the original tenor chant 3) sung on words taken from the other parts. 4) more than one of the above, in different parts. Contra parts would seem to want more words, but they can be very effective in a scat-like style. In short, there's no cookbook; do what works best for your singers, informed by the best information you can muster.
  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    Jeffrey, is it possible that you can somehow assign the words of the psalm to the notes in the contratenor and tenor lines?
  • Me personally? I'm busy with some other projects. But one certainly could do that; it's within the range of what might have been done. Remember that musicologists are not in charge of Purgatory, no matter how fit for that duty some of them might be. And if it got Dufay into the liturgy, I'd assent to fitting David Haas texts to the untexted lines. However, in this case, it's the texted lines that are your real problem; I can't see a liturgical use for a song in praise of Cleophe Malatesta. (If you're talking about concert use, then of course it's not an issue.)
  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    I changed it already, first day I saw the text and melody. Text is already purged of Roman-Byzantince political colour, and is now quite a bit more matrimonial that it stood before. I even chucked "Vasilissa" out and replaced it with "Desponsata." Where do I find David Haas' text?
  • lautzef
    Posts: 69
    Contrafacta are not dead! Match a 3-part piece with a text that you need liturgically and fit the text in. Last Sunday one of my ensemble was not there so we suddenly needed an ATB motet for offertory - I had one evening to produce one, so I took Pullois' 'Pour Prison' and turned it into "Bonum est confiteri." The first time you do one of these it takes a while, but after doing a few you get better at it. I use these all the time - with no money to hire anyone and a volunteer ensemble consisting of anywhere from 3 to 6 people on a given Sunday, this is a necessary skill (unless you are a Mozart and can compose a complete piece in the twinkling of an eye).

    For the contratenor and tenor it is possible to use just a part of the text (since the complete text is in the top voice it is liturgically correct) that makes sense. You can repeat it as well, which is also compatible with isorhythmic thinking. Jeff is right about the various ways to do it (and, BTW, he has sung more than one of ours at Immaculate Conception).

    Do you have a specific Sunday in mind when you will use this piece? I would see if one of the propers for that Sunday would fit the music. That would probably be better than trying to salvage bits and pieces of the original non-liturgical text, IMHO.
  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    I am actually thinking of using it in an actual Nuptial Mass.