The Tallis Scholars

Antoine Brumel
Et ecce terrae motus (The Earthquake Mass)

It is hard to think of any other piece of music quite like the 12-part Earthquake Mass by Antoine Brumel (c. 1460 – c. 1520). Both in its employment of 12 voices for almost its entire length and in its musical effects, there is nothing comparable to it in the Renaissance period, even if some of those effects may remind the listener of the 40-part motet Spem in alium by Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585). Brumel’s masterpiece did not inaugurate a fashion for massive compositions; but it did quickly establish a formidable reputation for itself and its composer, admired throughout central Europe in the 16th century as an experiment that could not easily be repeated. It is tribute enough that the only surviving source was copied in Munich under the direct supervision of the late-Renais­sance composer Orlandus Lassus (1532–1594), who none­theless never tried to rival its idiom in his own work.

A pupil of Josquin des Pres, Brumel is important to modern commentators because he was one of the few leading members of the Franco-Flemish school to be genuinely French. He was initially employed in the cathedrals of Chartres, Laon, and (in 1498) Notre Dame in Paris. where he was responsible for the education of the choirboys. However, he seems to have had a restless temperament that led to his dismissal on at least two occasions, and he soon began the peripatetic life of so many musicians of the period. There is evidence that he was employed in Geneva, Chambery, and probably Rome; but the high point of his career was the 15 years he spent as successor to Josquin and Obrecht at the court of Ferrara (between 1505 and 1520) in the retinue of Alfonso d’Este I.

Brumel’s masterpiece is based on the first seven notes of the Easter plainsong antiphon at Lauds, Et ecce terrae motus. This quotation yields the seven notes D–D–B–D–E–D–D, which are worked in canon between the third bass and the first two tenor parts during some of the Mass’s 12-part passages. The influence of these slow-moving notes can be heard throughout the work, and indeed a casual listener, confused by the teeming detail of the rhythmic patterns, may only hear some rather ordinary harmonies. Closer listening will reveal why Brumel chose to write in so many parts: he needed them to decorate these colossal harmonic pillars, and in doing so he effectively abandoned polyphony in the sense of independent yet interrelated melodic lines, and resorted to sequences and figurations that were atypical of his time. The effect can even be akin to that of Islamic art: static, non-representational, tirelessly inventive in its use of abstract designs, which are intensified by their repetitive application. This style of writing is so effective that anyone who might be reminded of Tallis’s Spem in alium would be unable to conceive of the need for another 28 parts.

The manuscript source for Brumel’s Earth­quake Mass was copied for a performance in about 1570 at the Bavarian court. The names of the 33 court singers are given against the nine lower parts (the boys are not named), amongst whom Lassus sang Tenor II. Unfortunately the last folios, which contain the Agnus Dei, have rotted, leaving holes in the voice-parts. Since this is not performable as it stands, we decided to replace it with the third Agnus from Nicolas Gombert’s Missa Tempore Paschalis, which is based on the same chant notes as the Brumel, and uses exactly the same 12 voice-parts. Given the eccentricity of the scoring, it seems very likely that Gombert wrote this movement deliberately, in homage to one of his greatest predecessors in the Flemish school.

—Peter Phillips, 2022

David Lang
sun-centered (2022)

A simple question reimagines the universe. The person who asks it is imprisoned, just for asking it. This particular person is Galileo, but it could be any number of others, whose pursuit of knowledge leads them beyond the boundaries of their time and place.

I wrote my piece sun-centered at the request of Peter Phillips, the founder and conductor of the renowned ensemble The Tallis Scholars. Peter asked me specifically to write a piece that could coexist on a program with Antoine Brumel’s monumental Missa Et ecce terræ motus—a mass for 12 voices that gets its name from being based on a scrap of chant whose text means “and the earth moved.” This scrap of text immediately reminded me of Galileo’s trial for the blasphemy of proving the earth revolves around the sun, which seemed to contradict the Bible. After his conviction he is supposed to have muttered under his breath “E pur si muove”—“and yet it moves.” Most likely, Galileo never actually said this! But the connection between the two texts got me thinking, about the movement of the earth, about the pricelessness of human knowledge, and about the perils of rejecting it.

Why is it that we are so resistant to new ideas that challenge the ones we already know? On one level, this is a philosophical question, and two of the texts I set in sun-centered come from my rewriting of basic philosophy texts by Plato and by Francis Bacon. But of course it is also a political question—we base our society on ideas and values we think we share with each other. If we aren’t able to grow together, in what we know and what we believe, it becomes impossible for us to build anything new. Or perhaps even to build anything together at all.

sun-centered is dedicated to the memory of Louis Andriessen, with whom I spent many hours and many years discussing philosophy and politics, and everything else.

—David Lang, 2022