La Rue Masses

Abstract

The La Rue complete edition continues apace with the issue of these three volumes containing the remaining 15 Masses. (See also vols.2 and 3 with ten Masses, reviewed by John Milsom, Early music, xxi (1993), PP.479-82.) Again most of these Masses have not been available before in a modern edition, and certainly have never been presented with such a depth of scholarly commentary. Indeed, these books are as magnificent as the previous ones, both for the music they contain and for the encyclopaedic erudition shown by the editors. As one might expect from a composer of this period, the majority of Masses by La Rue (c.1460-1518) are based on plainchant, although there are also five Masses based on secular models, four of which are printed here. The contents are: vol.4, Missae Incessament, Inviolata, Ista est speciosa, L'homme arme I, Nunca fue pena mayor; vol.5, Missae 0 gloriosa Margaretha, 0 salutaris hostia, Pascale, Pro fidelibus defunctis, Puer natus est nobis; vol.6, Missae Sancta Dei genitrix, Sine nomine, Sub tuum praesidium, T'andernaken, Tous les regretz. The chanson Incessament mon povre cueur lament by La Rue himself provides the model for the first of these Masses (ex.1). Here we have a fine five-voice work, written by a master craftsman and worth anyone's while to sing. As with all works in the Opera omnia, the edition is based on a single source deemed by the editors to be the best and closest to what La Rue probably originally wrote. A diagrammatic, dated filiation of sources is always provided: in this case, nine of the 12 sources are so displayed, and it is of great interest to see that Masses such as this were copied in sumptuous manuscripts as late as the mid1540s. Munich C (also containing the Missa pro fidelibus defunctis) was copied in 1543-4 for the Bavarian chapel, and it is worth reminding ourselves that Lassus was shortly to begin his long and influential tenure there, where, among other things he is known to have performed Brumel's mighty Missa Et ecce terrae motus (and why not also masterpieces by La Rue?). The early four-voice Missa Nunca fue pena mayor, in the Phrygian mode, based on the famous and tuneful villancico by Urreda, has become rather a personal favourite, since my publication (with the villancico) of the Mass of he same name by a Spanish contemporary of La Rue, Francisco de Peialosa (c.1470-1528). La Rue was a member of the chapel of Philip the Fair and accompanied him to Spain in 1501-3 and 1506 (where Philip died). We do not know where La Rue came across this Spanish song by the Flemish musician Urreda, who worked in Spain in the 1470s and 1480s, but it seems very likely that Nunca fue pena mayor was well known in many parts of Europe long before it was printed by Petrucci in 1501. It is fascinating to speculate which composer wrote his Mass first, and whether perhaps each knew the other's work. (Pefialosa's is certainly very Franco-Flemish in style.) Strangely, the present editor makes no mention in his commentary of the existence of Pefialosa's Mass, although he does refer to another proposed Nunca fue pena mayor Mass (copied in a Portuguese manuscript, Coimbra, Biblioteca Geral da Universidade, MM12); however, this unattributed and unnamed Mass shows no convincing signs that it is based on the villancico. Ex.2 shows the opening of La Rue's Sanctu : the two upper voices paraphrase the superius of the