Audite Nova by Orlande di Lassus
Note: The sensitive vegetarians among you may wish to consider skipping today's song.
With that out of the way, let's proceed to 'Audite nova', by the redoubtable Orlande di Lassus. (Or Orlando di Lasso, if you prefer.) The song made its first appearance in 1573, in a publication which became known as the 'Viersprachenbuch' ('Four-language-book') because it included six songs each in German, Italian, French and Latin.
It's a light-hearted ditty (unless you're a goose) about a certain bird which has been acquired to help celebrate St. Martin's Day, which falls on November 11, and honors the eponymous saint, a Roman soldier who was baptized as an adult, eventually became a bishop, and earned long-lasting fame and good will for cutting his cloak in half and giving it to a beggar during a blizzard. He (St. Martin, not the beggar) died on November 8, 374 AD, and was buried three days later--thus the date of his festival.
Since St. Martin's Day falls at the end of the harvest season, it became a popular festival beyond its association with the Saint. In fact, one might say that St. Martin became a liturgical excuse for a party. The specific association of geese and the festival arises from a peculiar incident in which St. Martin, trying to avoid becoming a bishop (this was before he was a saint), hid in a pen of geese and was discovered because of said birds' incontinent cackling.
I suppose one might say that geese are being punished in perpetuity for their role in outing the apparently shy saint.
But people were eating geese long before St Martin, so take it as you will.
At any rate, many songs and poems and stories have been written about St. Martin, his saint-day, and specifically about the geese traditionally pertaining thereunto. They usually contain onomatopoetic representations of geese honking, cackling and otherwise disturbing the peace.
And so it is with Lassus' lively piece! As you can hear in this fine performance by Stimmwerck, there is much hearty banter back and forth between the four voices about their admiration of and plans for the poor goose.
The attempt to put into words the cackling of geese--gyri-gyri-gaga--
is amusing and actually common to many other St Martin's Day songs.
I can't end this post, which features geese so prominently, without mentioning the 'Gansebuch' (the 'Geese Book'), a collection of liturgical music published in the early 16th-century, which got its popular name because of a certain illumination of a choir of geese. (The conductor and the fellow in the back look as though they might be there for more than mere musical enjoyment--it's hard to be a goose.) See the relevant page, attached. For more information, check out this website, and to view the entire book and plenty of information, click here.
And my mention of Stimmwerck, one of my very favorite one-on-a-part groups, brings to mind their recording of 'Die Narren' ('The Fools'), a song apparently published by Georg Forster but for which I have been unable to locate a score. It's hilarious--mentions virtually every kind of fool one might encounter--not to be missed--
Note: The sensitive vegetarians among you may wish to consider skipping today's song.
With that out of the way, let's proceed to 'Audite nova', by the redoubtable Orlande di Lassus. (Or Orlando di Lasso, if you prefer.) The song made its first appearance in 1573, in a publication which became known as the 'Viersprachenbuch' ('Four-language-book') because it included six songs each in German, Italian, French and Latin.
It's a light-hearted ditty (unless you're a goose) about a certain bird which has been acquired to help celebrate St. Martin's Day, which falls on November 11, and honors the eponymous saint, a Roman soldier who was baptized as an adult, eventually became a bishop, and earned long-lasting fame and good will for cutting his cloak in half and giving it to a beggar during a blizzard. He (St. Martin, not the beggar) died on November 8, 374 AD, and was buried three days later--thus the date of his festival.
Since St. Martin's Day falls at the end of the harvest season, it became a popular festival beyond its association with the Saint. In fact, one might say that St. Martin became a liturgical excuse for a party. The specific association of geese and the festival arises from a peculiar incident in which St. Martin, trying to avoid becoming a bishop (this was before he was a saint), hid in a pen of geese and was discovered because of said birds' incontinent cackling.
I suppose one might say that geese are being punished in perpetuity for their role in outing the apparently shy saint.
But people were eating geese long before St Martin, so take it as you will.
At any rate, many songs and poems and stories have been written about St. Martin, his saint-day, and specifically about the geese traditionally pertaining thereunto. They usually contain onomatopoetic representations of geese honking, cackling and otherwise disturbing the peace.
And so it is with Lassus' lively piece! As you can hear in this fine performance by Stimmwerck, there is much hearty banter back and forth between the four voices about their admiration of and plans for the poor goose.
The attempt to put into words the cackling of geese--gyri-gyri-gaga--
is amusing and actually common to many other St Martin's Day songs.
I can't end this post, which features geese so prominently, without mentioning the 'Gansebuch' (the 'Geese Book'), a collection of liturgical music published in the early 16th-century, which got its popular name because of a certain illumination of a choir of geese. (The conductor and the fellow in the back look as though they might be there for more than mere musical enjoyment--it's hard to be a goose.) See the relevant page, attached. For more information, check out this website, and to view the entire book and plenty of information, click here.
And my mention of Stimmwerck, one of my very favorite one-on-a-part groups, brings to mind their recording of 'Die Narren' ('The Fools'), a song apparently published by Georg Forster but for which I have been unable to locate a score. It's hilarious--mentions virtually every kind of fool one might encounter--not to be missed--