Handl Opus Musicum
VOICES & INSTRUMENTS
Tutor: Stephanie Dyer
Didsbury Baptist Church, Manchester
Reviewer: Vincent Walsh
Not quite a score of souls gathered at Didsbury to sing and play motets from Jacob Handl’s Opus Musicum. So few clearly limited Stephanie Dyer’s options: – we couldn’t have a go at any of the items a 12 or a 24! But from the ‘cloth’ that we were, Stephanie devised a programme of works a 8 – Choir I to sing and Choir II to play.
As singers, we were trusted from the start to sight read and were encouraged in our endeavours. No lengthy ‘warm-ups’ – and just a chord or a note to start us. It’s good to see such trust in the voices. Such help as we were offered was such help and advice as we needed.
Jacob Handl, who also called himself Jacobus Gallus was born in 1550 in what is modern day Slovenia. He was a Cistercian monk who travelled in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. His great work, Opus Musicus, published over the years 1586 -1590, included 374 motets that span the entire ecclesiastical year.
We began our day with Filiae Jerusalem, Nolite Flere, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me.’ (Luke Ch23: v28-31). Its largely antiphonal structure helped voices to blend with voices early in the session, and instruments to blend with each other before we all came together in the final section of the piece. A good choice to start.
Veni Sancte Spiritus: ‘Come Holy Spirit’ – the words are from a sequence in the Pentecost services. Again, this opened with Ch II playing antiphonally with Ch I voices, marking the gifts of the Holy Spirit. A party began at ‘da tuis fidelibus in te confidentibus’ with a tripla that lasted to the end of the piece ‘da perenium gaudium’ – grant us eternal joy.
O Quam Metuendus Est. ‘O how awe-inspiring is this place!’ a response to a vision of Heaven. Stephanie guided us to point out in our singing, the details of such words as ‘pulsanti’ -as in ‘to him who knocks, it will be opened.’ The second part became a prayer for forgiveness and divine guidance. The final bars rejoiced in yet another tripla of optimistic hope for the faithful to be granted a home in that place, amid ‘Alleluias!’
Quo mihi crude dolor tantum Dominare. Described as ‘a colloquy between Mary Magdalen and the risen Christ’ – the form of an echo. Ch II took the part of the Saviour and Ch I the sorrowing Mary. Mary tells of her pain and asks Christ why it should be; how he could let her suffer so. Christ replies with tiny, two syllable words that are echoes of her words, as comfort. When Mary ends her question with the word clamor, Christ’s echo is ‘Amor’ – love. And her request for and answer – responsio – is ‘sponso’ – ‘I support (you).’ There is the change to a tripla before returning to a sober common time to the Amen.
O Magnum Mysterium. This Christmas motet, in fifty bars describes the wonder of the birth amid the animals at the stable in Bethlehem, with a closing chorus of ‘noe!, noe!, noe!’ instead of the (perhaps) more usual Alleluia! The two choirs as the general pattern of the day, alternating the story until the final rejoicing.
Our final piece was a setting of Pater Noster. For this, the singers and players divided such that each choir had both voices and players. Tenor II enters as the fourth voice and sings the first phrase to the tune of the plainsong, just as far as ‘Pater noster, qui es in caelis’ then mingles with the polyphony. Parts alternate with the repetition of phrases, getting more excited as the phrases shorten and are tossed back and forth between choirs, the whole closing with a running cascade of quavers for the Amen.
Oh! You should have been there!
Vincent Walsh
Bradford
First published in June 2024 Newsletter
