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Genres and composers in the Leopold codex

Ian Rumbold and Reinhard Strohm

Most of the music in the Leopold codex is sacred and Latin-texted, though a few secular works are also present. The codex contains three plenary Mass cycles (consisting of sections of both the Ordinary and the Proper of the Mass; a fragment of one of these is also copied elsewhere in the codex) and 21 Mass Ordinary cycles (one of which is copied twice), along with 11 independent Mass Ordinary sections (one copied twice), two motet cycles (of which each item functioned as a substitute for a Mass Ordinary section), three cycles of polyphonic Mass Propers (in addition to those incorporated in the plenary cycles already mentioned) and 29 independent Mass Proper items. 44 pieces are motets or antiphon settings, 14 are Vespers hymns (one copied twice), 11 are Magnificat settings, and two are settings of responsories There are also nine secular pieces (seven German, one Dutch and one textless but derived from a French polyphonic song) and 21 untitled and textless works, mostly of the motet type. Several works are fragments, either because they were left incomplete by the scribe or because pages are missing from the manuscript; some fragments only repeat music copied elsewhere. (See » Abb. Synopsis of the Leopold codex.)

 

Synopsis of the Leopold codex (2 Abbildungen)

Abb. Synopsis of the Leopold codex
Abb. Synopsis of the Leopold codex (D-Mbs Mus. Ms. 3154).
 
Data (simplified) from Noblitt 1974, Noblitt 1987-96, Rumbold 2018. Fragments without titles not included.
The colour of the rows represents the time-band of the paper manufacture.
Where a composition bridges two gatherings, it is only numbered with the one in which it begins.
Abbreviations: WM = watermark; Mass O. = Mass Ordinary section(s); Mass P. = Mass Proper section(s).

 

In only 23 cases did the copyist attach a composer’s name, the remainder being copied anonymously. For another 28 works the composers can be ascertained from external concordances. Thus more than two thirds of the compositions remain anonymous to us. Of the 22 identifiable composers, the most prominent are Henricus Isaac with seven works (four of which are attributed in the manuscript), Johannes Martini also with seven (all attributed) and Jacob Obrecht with six (three attributed). Setting aside modern tentative ascriptions (for example to Paulus de Rhoda),[14] no other named composer was responsible for more than two pieces at most. This is the case, remarkably, with composers as notable as Josquin Desprez, Loyset Compère, Gaspar van Weerbeke, Alexander Agricola, Heinrich Finck and Thomas Stoltzer; among the remaining identified authors there are a few more foreigners (Jean Pullois, Antoine Busnoys, ‘Ar. Fer.’, Phi. Hol., Ninot le Petit, Nicasius de Clibano, Antoine de Févin) and lesser-known musicians perhaps of Central European origin (Aulen, G. Jung, W. Raber, Paulus de Rhoda, Cornelius de Veye, Jo. de Salice). Admittedly, compositions by the most renowned masters of the period – usually hailing from the Franco-Flemish region – may still be hidden among the anonyma (the anonymous Missa Je ne fays, no. 140, has only recently been identified as Isaac’s):[15] but we must assume that many other local or regional musicians contributed to the collection.

Only two attributions in the manuscript seem erroneous. The name of ‘Josquin’ appears above the much-circulated Missa L’homme armé by Loyset Compère (no. 108). A substantial four-voice Salve regina (no. 60) bears the name ‘Wilhelmus duffay’ (» Abb. Salve regina ‘Wilhelmus duffay’), an attribution that has been challenged.[16]

 

 

The setting is stylistically quite unlike Guillaume Du Fay’s known antiphon settings, but seems to belong to a Franco-Flemish composer of the mid-fifteenth century.[17] Only Compère, Isaac and Martini can be associated with music found in both sections of the codex. Both works by Josquin, the immortal Ave Maria…virgo serena and the Missa Fortuna desperata, are present in the first section, but only because the Mass cycle was appended to the end of the first section long after its completion; it was copied c.1506-07 by a single hand (‘I’) not seen elsewhere in the codex, and is contained within a gathering of its own, as is typical for the organisation of the second section.[18]

[14] Noblitt 1987.

[15] Gilbert 2014.

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