Kain höhers lebt and O edle frucht

Nicole Schwindt

Some songs refer explicitly to rulership. The Munich manuscript » D-Mbs Mus. ms. 3155, ncompiled not long after the death of Maximilian I, opens with a song by Ludwig Senfl that clearly addresses a panegyric address to Maximilian as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, represented by his heraldic animal (» Notation example Kain höhers lebt). The first stanza reads:

Kain höhers lebt, noch schwebt,
dem Adler yetz auf erden gleich.
Jn aller welt hochgemellt,
vber das heilig Römisch reich.
Die flug außprait, hellt frid vnd Klaid,
den Jungen sein, mit grechtem schein,
groß miltigkait wilpanen vnd Glaid,
Zu Zaigen schon,
seiner edlen Kayserlichen Kron.
(Nothing higher on the earth lives or rises now above the Holy Roman Empire than the eagle, which is held in high esteem throughout the world. He spreads his wings, preserves peace for his children, and grants protection. In doing so, he demonstrates his great generosity to his followers with charters concerning game preserves and hunting grounds in his magnificent imperial crown lands.)[40]

The final line of the fourth stanza quotes Maximilian’s motto: “halltu mas in allen dinngen” (“Tene mensuram” – Keep measure in all things).

Notenbsp. Kain höhers lebt

Ludwig Senfls Vertonung des Gedichts Kain höhers lebt auf Kaiser Maximilian I. und den Adler als sein Wappentier. Transkription nach » D-Mbs Mus. ms. 3155, fol. 1v–2r. Text: Siegmund von Dietrichstein (1484–1533) (?). » K. Senfls Vermächtnis, Kap. Hypothesen zum geplanten Projekt.

A very different tone was struck sixty years earlier by a poem whose opening is quoted in the three-part song noted in » I-TRbc 88, fol. 106r, under the text marker O edle frucht and the contrafactum text Martinus Abrahe sinu.[41] O edle frucht is a love song that pays homage to a figure who may be a metaphorical, or perhaps even a real, empress. The beginning of the second stanza addresses her directly:

Gantz ewencklichen in steter trew
Mein kayserin, beger jch dein.
Ich naig mich fur dich vff die knie,
Lauz uz meins hertzen senende pein!
(For all eternity I desire you, my empress, in everlasting loyalty. I bow before you on my knees, quenching the longing of my heart!)

And in contrast to the more common comparison in songs of the beloved to an empress, the lover reveals himself in the third stanza:

Wann du mir büethst ain fruntlich wort
Dar fur ich lieb nit kayser wer.
(If you granted me a kind word, I would gladly give up my imperial status for it.)

Unlike the melody of Senfl’s song, whose phrasing is already designed to integrate organically into the polyphonic texture, this song declaims its expressively constructed, emphatically expansive tenor in such a way that one can easily imagine it being performed monophonically, possibly with moderate accompaniment (» Notation example O edle frucht).

Notenbsp. O edle frucht

Nach einem dreistimmigen Liedsatz (um 1456–1460) in » I-TRbc 88, fol. 106r, mit der Textmarke O edle frucht und dem Kontrafakturtext Martinus Abrahae sinu laetus. Oberes System: Tenor des polyphonen Satzes; unteres System: rekonstruierte einstimmige Liedmelodie.

Admittedly, the evidence for a connection between O edle frucht and the imperial-courtly sphere is weak, especially since so little is known about Emperor Frederick III’s private musical practice. Yet it is a tempting thought to assume that the song notation from the late 1450s might be related to his 1452 marriage to Eleanor of Portugal. He need not have sung the song to her himself – there was a singer at court for that – but he made himself the medium of an updated form of “cultural action in conventionalised circumstances”,[42] the continual circling around the theme of love. Be that as it may: the comparison of the two songs illustrates the distance travelled by the courtly German tenor song in the Austrian region between 1450 and 1520, from the multi-voiced encasement of a weighty melody to a polyphonic conception.

[40] See Schwindt 2013, 127 and 133.

[41] Edited in Adler/Koller 1900, 269. Further details on this song and its text in Schwindt 1999, 58–62.

[42] Hübner 2013, 107.

[1] For example, So lanc so meer as So lang si mir (in I-TRbc 90, fol. 344v) or Een vraulic wesen as Ein frölich wesenn (in the songbook of Johannes Heer, CH-SGs Ms. 462, fol. 28v–30r).

[2] Binchois’ Dueil angoisseux becomes De langwesus in I-TRbc 88, fol. 204v, De langwesus; of the frottola line “Tente a l’ora, ruzinente, ch’io vo’ cantar” only “Dentelore” remains in the manuscript CH-Bu F X 1–4 (fol. 97), written by the Augsburg scribe Johann Wüst; a quodlibet from the Sagan partbooks (No. 118) quotes the songs Rabaßkadol and Panny, pany, baby (“Woman, woman, old woman”).

[3] Welker 2002/2003.

[4] These are RISM numbers 1512/1, 1513/2, [1513]/3, [1513]/3 (published in Mainz in 1517), and 1519]/5 (a woodcut reprint of a lost songbook originally published around 1510 in Augsburg, printed 1514/1515, see Schwindt 2008).

[5] On all three manuscripts, see Strohm 1993, 492–503.

[6] See » F. Geistliche Mehrstimmigkeit.

[7] D-Mbs Mus. ms. 3154.

[8] According to Strohm 1993, 519, and Strohm 2001, 23, the manuscript was originally in the possession of the choir school of St. Jakob, Innsbruck, whose members were employed for musical service at court. See also » G. Nicolaus Krombsdorfer.

[9] Strohm 1986/1987.

[10] I-TRbc 89, fol. 388v–389r; I-Fn, B.R. 229, fol. 174v–175r; » Guter seltzamer und kunstreicher teutscher Gesangk; Nürnberg 1544, Nr. 8: “Heyaho nun wie sie grollen dort auff dem Ritten die geschwollen” in the Secunda pars, T. 76–85; textual reference at the beginning, bars 1–13: “Woll wir aber heben an den Danhauser zu singen” (DTÖ 147/148, 63 and 69 f.).

[11] Bienenfeld 1904/1905, 96, note 2.

[12] CH-Zz, Ms. G 438 (written c. 1524); Pfisterer 2013.

[13] A-Wn Mus.Hs. 18810 (c. 1524) and D-Mu, 8°Cod. ms. 328–331 (before 1527), also known as the “Welser Songbook”.

[14] Also known as the “Herwart” or “Augsburg Songbook”.

[15] Birkendorf 1994, vol. 1, 98.

[16] Schwindt 2013, 126–130.

[17] D-W, Cod. Guelf. 78.Quodl.4 (Southern Germany c. 1505); D-Mbs Mus. ms. 4483 (Southern Germany c. 1515); A-Wn Cod. 4337 (Vienna, early 1520s); D-W Cod. Guelf. 292 Musica hdschr. (Constance?, c. 1525).

[18] CH-Bu F X 10 (1510); CH-Bu F X 5–9 (Fascicle I: c. 1510); CH-Bu F X 1–4 (Fascicle I: c. 1517/1518, Fascicle II: c. 1524); CH-Bu F VI 26 (first quarter of the sixteenth century); CH-SGs Ms. 462 (1510–1516, 1530), also known as the “Heer Songbook”.

[19] See above note 4.

[20] RISM 1534/17: » Der erst teil. Hundert vnd ainundzweintzig newe Lieder…, hrsg. von Johann Ott, Nürnberg 1534.

[21] Sterl 1971, 24. Grünwald/Gruenwolt is documented as Persefant (under-herald) in Regensburg from 1483–1487.

[22] Grosch 2013, 48–54.

[23] A-Wn Cod. 3027 (Passau c. 1492–1494), fol. 174v–177r: “Von yppliklichen dingen”. Score reproduction in Curschmann 1970, 22 f.

[24] Quodlibet No. XX quotes the couplet “Da schalt sie jhn ein trollen, ein truncken vnd ein vollen” from the middle of the third Hesselloher stanza (Secunda pars, bars 133–137, rhythm corresponds to the song model, diastematic contour slightly modified, see DTÖ 147/148, 132).

[25] A-Whh RR V (1489-1492): Wien, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Reichsregister vol. V (1489–1492), fol. 60r.

[26] “Die situationsbasierten Thematisierungsverfahren lassen die Liebe vor allem als kulturelles Handeln in konventionalisierten Umständen erscheinen” (The situation-based methods of thematisation present love primarily as cultural action in conventionalised circumstances): Hübner 2013, 107.

[27] The earliest available source for the polyphonic Elslein song is the Sagan partbooks (PL-Kj Berol. Mus.ms. 40098). There is indeed an earlier transmission from around 1455 in the form of a monophonic melody, but with a Latin text Gaudeamus pariter (CZ-Pnm Vysehrad 376, fol. 39v; digitised in the database Melodiarum hymnologicum Bohemiae: http://tinyurl.com/gaudeamuspariter). It is very likely – or at least possible – that this is a sacred contrafactum of the secular monophonic Elslein song, though this cannot yet be documented.

[28] The earliest sources for this popular song are a broadside print of the text by Albert Kunne (Memmingen, c. 1501, see http://tinyurl.com/Ich-stund-Kunne, metadata at http://tinyurl.com/Kunne-meta) uand a freely paraphrased adaptation of melodic elements under the text marker in the tenor “Ich stund an einem Morgen”, entered around 1499/1500 on fols. 221v–222r in the Berlin mensural codex D-B Mus. ms. 40021. Both suggest a widely known song melody, although no earlier written version is currently documented.

[29] D-B Ms. germ. oct. 280, fol. 48b–49b (Nr. 33): Ich sien den morgenssterren.

[30] Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Geheimes Hausarchiv, 601, XXVI, letter from Duke Philipp to his father Wilhelm V dated 13.10.1593.

[31] On the history of the term, see Grosch 2013, 23–33. See also » B. Minnesang und alte Meister on the terminological tradition of “tenores”, which was initially not associated with polyphony.

[32] Complete transcription of both songs and further remarks in Strohm 1993, 496–499.

[33] Heidrich 2001.

[34] Strohm 1989; Leverett 1995; Höink 2012. The overview should also include the Missa Ducis Saxsoniae Sing ich nit wol composed by Nicolas Champion dit Liegeois, whose song basis is already recorded before the South German manuscript D-WGl Lutherhalle Ms. 403/1048 (c. 1535/1536) in Bernhard Rem’s partbook setting D-Mu, 8°Cod. ms. 328–331 (before 1527).

[35] D-Mbs Mus. ms. 3154, fol. 53v: Tannhauser Ihr seid mir lieb (3v), fol. 151r: Veni creator spiritus, and Thanhauser jr seit mir lieb. Heidrich 2005, 54 ff.

[36] Klüpfel; Karl (ed.): Urkunden zur Geschichte des Schwäbischen Bundes (1488–1533), vol. 1, Stuttgart 1846, 24.

[37] On authorship, see Leverett 1995; on the musical style in the context of Frederick III, see Schmalz 1987; on the title, see Strohm 1989.

[38] Schwindt 2006, 51–56.

[39] Schwindt 2012.