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Concordances

Ian Rumbold and Reinhard Strohm

Much of the music in the Leopold codex is linked to musical repertories of other European centres, where the same compositions were also known and copied.[44] The way in which these concordances are distributed over the existing sources from this period has bearings on date and provenance of the compositions, on musical-cultural transfer processes and even on political affiliations between institutions. The direction in which a transfer took place can normally be inferred from the dates of the concordant copies (if known); but often there must have been common exemplars that are now lost. It is also worth knowing whether transfers concerned individual compositions or entire collections or gatherings, and whether pieces are shared with only one other source or with many.

The series of concordances begins with a special case. The Strahov codex (» CZ-Ps D.G. IV. 47), which was compiled in c.1467-70 for a catholic church in Bohemia, probably the cathedral of Prague,[45] shares six compositions with the Leopold codex, one of which (Kyrie de BMV, no. 11) is known only from these two manuscripts. But all six pieces, which are dispersed over the entire large Strahov codex, occur close together as nos 7, 8, 10, 11 and 14 in Leopold.[46] They are copied here in gatherings 1 and 2, datable c.1466-69, contemporaneously with the creation of Strahov. (More concordances may have existed on the lost first 19 folios of Leopold.) Although shared links with a Habsburg court repertory are possible, a musical transfer between church schools seems the more likely reason, happening in this case before the later gatherings of Leopold were written.

Gatherings 1-5, datable before c.1472, also transmit 13 of the altogether 15 compositions shared with the Trent Codices (I-TRbc 87, 88, 89, 90 and 91, I-TRcap 93*), another cathedral repertory.[47] Codex I-TRbc 89 (datable c.1462-68) is most closely related with six concordant pieces. It uniquely shares with Leopold the extraordinary eight-voice motet Ave mundi/Gottes namen (no. 25), a local composition imitating the style of Antoine Busnoys.[48] A famous work found only in Leopold and codex Trent 91 (c.1472-77) is the motet In hydraulis by Busnoys (no. 24), composed in homage to Jean Ockeghem between 1465 and 1467.

The Leopold codex is the earlier source in all its concordances with other manuscripts. Most of them occur, after c.1490, in collections from Saxony: ten in the ‘Apel codex’ from Leipzig (D-LEu Ms. 1494), six in the Saxon collection D-B Mus. Ms. 40021 (which also shares a scribal hand on its fols 253r–254v), and altogether ten in the even later choirbooks from Annaberg (Saxony), D-Dl Ms. Mus. 1/D/505 and 1/D/506. Six works are also found in the Czech Speciálník codex (CZ-HKm Ms. II A 7),[49] which shares material with Saxon manuscripts. The concordant compositions are mostly of Netherlands origin, thus they apparently travelled first to Innsbruck and then to Saxony, through affiliations brought about by Archduke Siegmund’s wedding to Katharina of Saxony in 1484, and by King Maximilian’s political alliance with the Saxon court at Dresden and Torgau, members of which visited Tyrol in 1496-97. Similar clusters of concordances connect the Leopold codex with the court repertory of Milan (four concordances in the ‘Gaffurius codices’ I-Md 2269, 2267 and 2266) and Ferrara (I-MOe Ms. α. M. 1.2: three Mass cycles by Josquin and Obrecht). The seven works attributed to Johannes Martini in the Leopold codex may also have come from Ferrara, where Martini was court composer 1473-1497, although they are spread over various Italian manuscripts. Martini was acquainted with Paul Hofhaimer and Isaac; he probably visited Innsbruck around 1466 and 1473. The ducal courts of Milan and Ferrara were politically allied with the Habsburgs: Ferrara with Archduke Siegmund, and Milan with both him and his successor Maximilian, who married Princess Bianca Maria Sforza of Milan in 1493.

Concordances with all other manuscripts, mostly in Italy and Germany, are limited to two or three works in each case, copied after the Leopold entries. It is striking that the Linz fragments (» K. Die Linzer Fragmente), which seem to have originated in the Habsburg orbit in c.1490-92, duplicate only two widely disseminated works from Leopold (nos 52 and 150).

[44] See the concordance table in Noblitt 1987-96, IV, 308-11.

[45] » F. Kap. The Strahov codex (Lenka Hlávková).

[46] See the description in Gancarczyk 2011.

[47] The concordances with Strahov and Trent 90 include, predictably, some of the oldest music in Leopold, for example the English motet Anima mea liquefacta est (no. 2), doubtfully ascribed in modern research to John Forest, and the Agnus dei secundum of the Mass cycle by Jean Pullois (no. 7), both composed before 1450.

[48] » J. SL In gottes namen faren wir; » Hörbsp. ♫ Ave mundi spes/Gottes namen. On both works, see also Strohm 1993, 532-3.

[49] » F. Kap. The Speciálník codex (Lenka Hlávková).

[1] Colour images of the manuscript are available at https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0005/bsb00059604/images/.

[2] Some 34 hands can be distinguished in the second section of the manuscript alone; one of these (hand ‘Y’, fols 370r– 379v) also occurs in the manuscript D-B Mus. Ms. 40021 (fols 253r–254v).

[3] Noblitt 1987-96, I, viii; synopsis of foliations in IV, 313-14.

[5] Noblitt 1968, 1974, 1987, 1997 (etc.). For other recent research, see Strohm 1993, 516-23; Rifkin 2003, Rumbold 2018.

[6] See, for example, Josquin Desprez, Missa Fortuna desperata (fols 172r-178r), recorded in 2001 by the Clerks’ Group, dir. Edward Wickham (ASV label, catalogue no. GAU 220); in 2009 by the Tallis Scholars, dir. Peter Phillips (Gimell label, catalogue no. 42); and in 2018 by Biscantor! Métamorphoses (Ar-Re-Se label, catalogue no. AR 20181). The second Agnus Dei of Isaac’s Missa Wol auff gesell/Comment peult avoir joye (fols 179r-196r and 456v-463v) was recorded by Capella Alamire and the Alamire Consort, dir. Peter Urqhuart, CD Music of Pierrequin de Thérache (Centaur label, catalogue no. CRC3282), track 10. Kyrie of the anonymous Missa O Österreich (fols 205v-213r): Ensemble Rosarum Flores, CD Global Player Maximilian: Musikalisches Networking um 1500 (Musikmuseum label, catalogue no. 13042), track 1. Obrecht’s Missa Si dedero (fols 449v-456r): ANS Chorus, dir. János Bali (Hungaroton label, catalogue no. HCD 31946). The anonymous motets Ave mundi spes/Gottes namen (fols 29v-30r) and O propugnator miserorum (fols 148v-150r): Stimmwerck, SACD Flos virginum: Motets of the 15th Century (CPO label, catalogue no. 7779372), tracks 8 and 6, respectively. Isaac’s motet Argentum et aurum (fols 72v-73r) and the German songs So stee ich hie auff diser erd, Ich sachs ains mals, Gespile, liebe gespile gut, Es sassen höld in ainer stuben (fols 51v-53r): Ensemble Leones, CD Argentum et aurum: Musical Treasures from the Early Habsburg Renaissance (Naxos label, catalogue no. 8.573346), tracks 1, 16, 22, 20 and 21, respectively.

[7] It is not to be confused with the Hofkirche, adjacent to the Hofburg, which was completed in 1553 and contains Maximilian’s cenotaph.

[9] Fässler 1975.

[10] Fässler 1975, 32, from Tiroler Landesarchiv (TLA) Innsbruck, Raitbücher der tirolischen Kammer, 1511, vol 56, fol 77v, vol 56, fol 290v.

[12] The city archives of Innsbruck (Stadtarchiv, Register, p. 43), mention a ‘Veit schulmaister’ in 1498.

[16] Dèzes 1927; see also Noblitt 1987-96, IV, 369.

[17] The work is later anonymously transmitted in Librone 1 of the Gaffurius-Codices of Milan (I-MD 2269). Rifkin 2003, 255, thinks that it might be by Antoine Busnoys.

[18] Rumbold 2018, 319-22 describes the copy of the Sanctus and Agnus Dei in detail, with facsimile.

[19] For the distribution of the music in the manuscript see Rumbold 2018, with a full inventory.

[20] For details, see Rumbold 2018.

[21] No. 55, for example, is a textless piece written on the two inner sides of a bifolio (fol. 75/84), which was then wrapped round an existing gathering (8), so that the two sides could no longer be read simultaneously. See Noblitt 1987-96, IV, 344, where the last sentence must read ‘so daß eine Aufführung aus dem Ms. unwahrscheinlich ist’.

[22] Generally about manuscripts of this type, see Just 1981.

[23] Noblitt 1968, Rifkin 2003. The actual ‘motetti missales’ of Milan (1470s and later) are not copied here.

[24]  » Hörbsp. ♫ for all five songs.

[25] ‘Tannhauser, ihr seid mir lieb’ (Venus addressing Tannhäuser) is a stanza of the ‘Tannhäuserlied’ (Nun will ich aber heben an), printed in Nuremberg, 1515; the Leopold codex is its earliest known source.

[27] On this work, see Staehelin 1977, 148-50, 205.

[28] Noblitt 1992 calls this a Missa in tempore belli; see also » D. SL O Österreich. Page layout of the Agnus Dei described in Rumbold 2018, 322-23.

[29] Steinegger 1954. Further on traditions of the church, see » D. Hofmusik. Innsbruck.

[30] Page layout described in Rumbold 2018, 329-34.

[34] See Noblitt 1974 (with table of watermarks, p. 39); Noblitt 1987-96, IV, 315-40.

[35] On the methodology, see also Strohm 1983, Rifkin 2003. Watermark dating along these lines has also been applied to the Trent codices (» K. Kap. Die Datierung) and the St Emmeram codex (Strohm 1983, Rumbold-Wright 2006, 14-19).

[36] WM 4, 9 and 10 deviate from the chronology, but these papers are only individual bifolios (26-27, 75/84, 85/98), added to already existing gatherings. Gathering 8 randomly assembles papers datable between 1477 and 1482, but it was not originally meant to be arranged in this order nor perhaps to be placed here: see Noblitt 1974, 42-43.

[37] On gatherings 14-17 (WM 6 with embedded papers WM 16/17, 1476-78), see Noblitt 1974, 41.

[38] Rifkin 2003, 285-6 and 300-1. Ave Maria…virgo serena is placed near the end of gathering 15 (WM 17: 1476-78); it is followed there only by an even later addition (in a different hand), the anonymous motet O propugnator miserorum, addressing Margrave Leopold III of Austria (canonised 1485), on which see » F. SL Die Motette O propugnator miserorum. The position of the motet in Josquin’s oeuvre and the possibility of its having been written outside Milan is discussed in Fallows 2009, 60-61 and 118-19.

[39] Thus Noblitt 1974, 45.

[42] For Rifkin 2003, 300 and 301 n. 124, these copies belong to a later stage of the main scribal hand, but the paleographical evidence seems overstated.

[43] Strohm 1997 suggests that Isaac did have contact with ‘Germanic’ idioms as they appear in these works before 1484, but that he also disseminated these idioms to other central European musicians.

[44] See the concordance table in Noblitt 1987-96, IV, 308-11.

[45] » F. Kap. The Strahov codex (Lenka Hlávková).

[46] See the description in Gancarczyk 2011.

[47] The concordances with Strahov and Trent 90 include, predictably, some of the oldest music in Leopold, for example the English motet Anima mea liquefacta est (no. 2), doubtfully ascribed in modern research to John Forest, and the Agnus dei secundum of the Mass cycle by Jean Pullois (no. 7), both composed before 1450.

[50] There was no Holy Roman Emperor in 1493-1508.

[51] See » D. Hofmusik. Albrecht II und Friedrich III. The composer abbreviation ‘Ar. fer.’ on no. 64 (gathering 11: 1483-84) could refer to Emperor Friedrich’s chaplain Arnold Fleron: it so happens that an ‘Arnold’, probably Fleron, is recorded at Innsbruck as ‘componist’ in both 1483 and 1484: see Strohm 1993, 518 and 531 n. 478

[52] Further on the organisation of the courtly music, see » D. Hofmusik. Innsbruck; Senn 1954.

[53] Rifkin 2003, 285 n. 103, rejects the identification of scribe ‘A’ with Krombsdorfer because of the ‘Italianate’ features of a letter he sent in 1472 to Duke Ercole d’Este (» G. Kap. Ferrara): but this calligraphy was surely chosen for the benefit of the addressee.

[54] Wolfgang Unterstetter, suffering from podagra, received from the court a weekly measure of salt: HHSt Wien (A-Whh), Kopialbuch H. Nr. 7, 1485, fol. 170v-171r.

[55] See » Abb. Synopsis, and Noblitt 1987-96, IV, 341-57; Rumbold 2018, 287-89.

[56] » I. Music and Ceremony in Maximilian’s Innsbruck (Helen Coffey)

Empfohlene Zitierweise:

Ian Rumbold and Reinhard Strohm: “The Codex of Magister Nicolaus Leopold”, in: Musikleben des Spätmittelalters in der Region Österreich <https://musical-life.net/essays/codex-magister-nicolaus-leopold-0> (2021).