Time Will Tell

by Donald Greig

  There was no emotional resonance and none of the personal detail to be found in the brief précis of the group’s history provided in the article in The Gramophone. The story of the group was too clear, too glib, the random narrative twists and turns appearing predetermined rather than the result of chance. But for good luck, Emma might still be working on her Ph.D. in some library carrel, and America and Europe places she pondered visiting for a holiday if she ever got a job.

  Reduced to virtual bullet points, her life seemed paradoxically empty and purposeful. ‘Intelligent and determined’, she had ‘failed to complete her degree’ and ‘lived alone’. And, as if to compensate for her personal shortcomings, the rise of the group had been made to sound inevitable, the result of her ‘obvious aspiration’. What reference she had made to ambition was in the context of the group and not herself. But maybe that was how the amateurs of the first production saw her? Perhaps the actors and opera singers whom she had ‘let go’ thought of her as a neurotic, loveless, pushy woman who, when she wasn’t hogging the limelight, was plotting the next phase of her career. There were two sides to every story.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Memoirs of Geoffroy Chiron: Livre II ed. Francis Porter

  Frevier 13, 1524

  On a day like today I can be glad that travel has never been a part of my life. As I stood on the bridge this morning, watching the boys with their rods angled at the Loire, fishing for perch or carp, I traced my history in the skyline of Tours: from my birthplace east of the Cathedral of St Gatien towards the church of St Martin in the west where I served as a choirboy, chapelain and chambrier. My entire life was contained within the single sweep of my gaze.

  My physician, Gillet Cossart, lives close by the Abbey of St Martin and, as I had all but finished the tincture he had given me, I decided to arrive unannounced. He comes highly recommended. He accompanied the King’s troops in the Italian campaign [1486] where he met Compère (a brief meeting and one which left him slightly puzzled about the composer’s reputation). It was on his travels that the surgeon developed new techniques for amputation. That, he told me, was work for a young man: cutting through bone and gristle requires a singularity of purpose closely allied to physical strength. His current occupation in the City of Tours was, he declared, more suited to a man of his age and temperament, and he was glad to have put away the larger of his surgeon’s tools. Aside from the occasional accident, he had not been called upon to perform an amputation for some twenty years.

  He was thus, by his own admission, not entirely qualified to deal with my condition. The quality of honesty is rare in a physician and led me to place my trust in him. He had some experience dealing with something similar in another patient whom, he explained with due severity and concern, he had been unable to save. Surgery was not an option, the stomach and its contents being so delicately and harmoniously arranged as to make any kind of invasion dangerous. I should expect the growth, already visible beneath the thin skin of my stomach, to increase over the coming months. The treatment he would offer would be twofold: accommodating the pain (which he told me would increase) and managing the worst of the symptoms. He would make poultices and tinctures for me, the one to be applied externally, the other to be ingested as and when required. His aim was to keep me as comfortable as he could. Thus far he had provided me only with a green liquid to be taken both before and after eating, and whenever the warning signs of vomiting came upon me. Its primary taste was of mint, though the heat that it produced in my mouth also suggested the presence of fermented liquor.

  The Doctor was dismayed that I had finished the tincture and advised me that I should take less in future. It was, he said, the kind of medicine the effectiveness of which would diminish the more I took it. Suffer the symptoms, he said, and pay no heed to traditional mealtimes. Eating was important to maintain my constitution, but it would be better to eat small things at odd hours rather than one large meal at midday; I should follow the example of the cattle who graze, not the dog which eats everything all at once. Whilst on the subject of food, I explained to him that I was writing a Mémoire and asked him what I might eat to help me recall events of the past. Avoid red wine and garlic, he said, and take cumin and ginger in an infusion of hot water.

  He asked about the pain and I told him how it was at its worst at night and that the burning and stabbing sensations faded away during the morning hours. He advised me to build bolsters so I slept sitting up rather than lying down, adding that the ginger for my memory would help my digestion. He promised to visit me next week and I welcomed this. I know that in this way he will increase his fee, but money is no longer my concern.

  Being told that I was going to die did not surprise me and, in many ways, I welcomed it. God has already been generous to me in granting me more than my three-score-years-and-ten. Jehan was old and infirm when he died, and there were times when I believe he would have embraced death if it were offered to him. I am now four years older than when Jehan’s soul departed his body, and I understand better the blasphemous urge to end one’s existence voluntarily. At least I am able to anticipate my end and I am provided with the time necessary to put all my affairs in order and to make my peace with God and my fellow man.

  I am a widower: my wife, Marie, died some ten years ago. I have a servant who prepares my meals and keeps my home clean and tidy. My only son, Jehan (named after Jehan Ockeghem, one of his godfathers) now lives in Amiens, but rarely do I see him. In his early life he acted as a clerc to the Royal Household, and now he has taken up a position as an advisor to the Duc de Picardie. He is married and blessed with three children, though I have only met the oldest, Pierre, who, I am proud to say, is a chantre in the Royal Chapel. My son has promised that he will visit soon and, as Amiens is only a six-day journey on horseback, I am hopeful that if my condition worsens there will still be time for him to visit me before I meet my God.

  Even if my thoughts seem focused only on the past, it is not my intention to crawl towards death’s embrace. I try to walk every day; I spend time writing this account; I regularly attend Mass – all things that I have achieved today. After my visit to the Doctor, I walked towards the Abbey of St Martin for Mass. Arriving early, I said my prayers and then walked in the beautiful cloisters, which afforded shade from the wintry sun and protection from the wind. It was here that I would walk from the schola cantorum [song school] as a choirboy whilst the older chapelains would cast a critical eye over our deportment.

  Being a choirboy was an exciting opportunity, which made men of children. Jehan, who, like all singers and composers, was once a choirboy, thought that it was an unnatural life and held it responsible for the ambition of many composers, particularly Desprez. For me, looking back, it nevertheless remains a time I remember with fondness.

  The past is my friend in a way that the present has ceased to be. The memories, stored for so long, have become as a room full of pictures and treasures, each one catching my eye and urging me to consider them. I remembered the occasion when I had a hiccupping fit that I thought would never end, and the tenorista, Claude Martin, had caused it to stop by jumping in front of me, his hood over his head and his arms extended like a giant bat. I remembered the snowstorm – unheard of in these regions – that blew snowdrifts into the walkways of the cloister so we had to take a detour to the south side of the square; and the celebrations for St Martin, the patron Saint of the city and its Abbey, whose feast day fell in November and which would require us to process, singing plainsong hymns, occasionally stopping to sing a Salve. That was always the most tiring day for us as boys, severely testing the limits of how long we could sing. Our throats would seize up and we would return to the choir school and put a stylus into our mouths, pretending to create enough space for us to be able to talk again.

  I had corresponded with the Archbishop, Martin of Beaunes, and, after several letters and a small payment, it was agreed that Mass today would be dedicated to the sick of the Diocese, and that my name should he
ad the list for whom intercession was sought. Additionally a Mass of my choosing would be sung by the chapelains of St Martin for which I would compensate them. I instructed them to sing Jehan’s Missa Cuiusvis toni, which many think of as in the old style, but it holds special significance for me. Recently all the news is of composers whose music I have never heard – Clemens and Créquillon, Mouton and de Sermisy – music we do not hear now François I has moved the court to Paris. I am told by one singer, Charles de Saint Leu, that the new music is much richer and fuller, that they commonly use six, seven or even eight parts at a time, and that they have rediscovered the lower pitches of which Jehan was so fond. I had to smile when I was told that. If only they knew that Jehan had written in thirty-four parts.

  The Missa Cuiusvis toni is not a difficult mass so long as you remember one thing: which mode you are singing in. The design of the piece ensures that, from a single written example, the music can take three different forms in sound and, in this variety, Jehan grants to the singer a freedom of choice and an openness of purpose that is a true reflection of his generosity. For Jehan, music was for God and for all of His children.

  On the page, the Missa Cuiusvis toni looks simple and, indeed, it makes no particular demands. The notes are not over-fractured, ensemble is easy to attain and it has become a favourite of many. It continues to be used not simply because it is found in the choirbooks, but also because, written to be sung in three modes, it can be made to fit in with any chants that surround it; thus it is fit for every day and every mood. As Boethius, following Aristotle, says: the modes are possessed of their own qualities in much the same way that the days of the week have their own smell. Of course, I could have asked for something more flamboyant for my intercession, like the Missa de plus en plus, which requires much rehearsal, a clear mind and great vocal fortitude and, though they may not have thanked me for my choice, the singers would certainly have appreciated the extra payment they would have received for the additional preparation.

  But my reasons for choosing theMissa Cuiusvis toni were personal and date back to the earliest days of my friendship with Jehan. I had been appointed sommelier de chapelle [junior singer] some two years earlier, having served my apprenticeship as a choirboy and acquitted myself well. Though not possessed of the sweetest voice, I was quick with my studies, of sound memory, and was able to cantare super librum [improvise] with more certainty than many others. What I lacked in suavitude, I compensated for with application. When my voice broke, it was clear that I could no longer sing any of the high notes and so I developed the ability to sing en fausset [falsetto]. I had hoped that I could thus be part of the choir, but the maître de chapelle decided it would be better to have me sing the same part as some of the chapelains. Unfortunately the chapelains – or at least one of them, Pierre de Gilles – saw this as a challenge to his status. When he found himself standing next to me in a rehearsal and singing the same line, he stopped, waved his hand and confronted the maître de chapelle.

  He was outraged; this went against the natural order, he said, a boy singing a man’s part. It was not fitting. It was a challenge to him, to the choir, to the hierarchy of heaven and earth, and to God himself. That, in itself, was sufficient argument with which none could disagree. But then he made a foolish assertion that was a direct challenge to the authority of the maître. It was, asserted Pierre de Gilles, not something that would happen at Orléans. Orléans was the home town of the maître and it was rumoured that he had been passed over for appointment there.

  ‘Well, fuck off back to Orléans then!’ was the maître’s blunt retort.

  Unfortunately for me, the result of this dispute – which was ultimately settled by a meeting of the chapter – was that I, a junior member, was made a sacrifice. Despite my innocence in the matter, I was required to leave the choir for a year until I reached the statutory age of sixteen. In that time I continued to sing at home or in the nave of the church where no one could hear me. It was there that I developed my adult voice. I taught myself by listening to the other singers, in particular Jehan Ockeghem who was recognised as the finest of them all. His voice could descend unnaturally low, but as it rose it maintained its shape and sound. He could sing in the range of the higher, contratenor voices without losing any of the distinct sweetness of his sound. My voice never had this higher register (other than by singing en fausset, something I was not inclined to do lest the other chapelains remember my failed usurpation and take against me) and, when I was appointed chapelain, I stood next to Jehan Ockeghem himself and sang the same part. Pierre de Gilles never addressed me directly, which in many ways was a relief.

  Jehan was always kind to me, and encouraging. At that time, the choir was probably the finest in the land and hosted many other composers, amongst them Antoine Busnois. I learned much from Jehan, not simply through his understanding of the music, but from his example. His voice was always firm and clear and I watched the way he stood and breathed. Occasionally he would compliment me, not necessarily by direct observation but through acknowledging the choices I made. ‘That was a good place to breathe,’ he would say when I chose to break a phrase at a particular point. Or, ‘This motet suits your voice.’

  But the greatest compliment he paid me was when he asked me to help him with his new composition, the mass-setting that was to become Missa Cuiusvis toni. I remember the occasion well. It was after Mass on the feast of St Michael and All Angels.

  ‘Geoffroy,’ he said (he always called me by my first name), ‘I remember that, as a young boy, you had an elegant hand. I wonder if you would be good enough to help me with some work I am doing? My usual scribe is unavailable.’

  There was only one answer.

  Thus the first composition upon which I worked with him was that very mass, the Missa Cuiusvis toni. And that is why it holds the place it does in my heart. It was a piece that I came to know well, not just through singing it many times with Jehan himself at the Abbey of St Martin, but because I was there at the inception of the idea and responsible for its first realisation in written form. Jehan could have asked one of the monks who worked daily in the scriptorium to write out the music, yet he preferred to work with someone familiar with singing. He explained: St Gregory had not merely written down the chants when the Holy Spirit had dictated them to him, he had understood them too. In this – blasphemous as it might be, and with all due humility – it was I who was St Gregory. Jehan, of course, was the true Orpheus.

  Today the Mass was sung by four men whilst the choirboys sang the plainsong, and all the singers accomplished their task commendably. Seated in my stall, I was able to see and hear, yet as always, my awareness of the difficulties of their task made taking pleasure from their endeavours difficult. I reminded myself that we should not be bound by earthly matters, and instead, quite properly, I followed the direction of their praise: to God in heaven. If I might be permitted to comment, I would say that the endings of the Credo and the Kyrie were uncertain and, rather than a sense of finality, I experienced instead a feeling of loss, hardly a fitting ending for a statement of our faith in God. That would not have happened in our day when the choir was enlarged by new appointments made by Louis XI. Then, with more singers swelling our ranks, one would have heard a noise more suited to the expression of faith. Nor would the Mass have taken so long given our preference for faster speeds.

  The plainsong was acceptable. Plainsong is the foundation, the rock upon which the education of choirboys is built. It must proceed from the heart and be controlled through breathing and a gentle movement of the body. The boys are not so good this year. There is a roughness of tone where there should be sweetness, a hesitancy of movement that cracks the line so one hears individual notes and isolated voices. Plainsong should flow like a river. The occasional inflections and decorations should be like the stones that lie on the river bed, making no disturbance to the progress of the water, but suggesting instead a design beneath the surface. One or two voices dominated where the aim is to
sing praises to the Creator una voce [with one voice], as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed’nego did when they were thrown into the fiery furnace. Only a practised eye like mine, weakened as it is by old age, could discern the occasional look between the boys when one voice threatened to drag the others back; only a trained ear like mine could hear a syllable applied to the wrong note.

  Observing the jeune chapelain [the oldest boy] commanding the younger ones, I fell to thinking about Jehan’s theory about the young Compère and the young Desprez. Jehan liked to study causes and, though he had no proof, he believed that their time as choirboys at St Quentin was the root of their unsteady relationship.

  Loyset Compère was the older of the two by some five years and thus, when Josquin Desprez arrived from his home in Condé, Loyset would have been one of the senior boys with authority over Josquin. According to Jehan, as children they would have been much as they were as adults: Compère would have been innocent and unaware, blind to his own abilities, and unable to communicate with people, for he could not understand the emotions of others; Desprez, by contrast, was defined by his confrontations with others and, throughout his life, was prepared for a fight if he thought he had been in any way slighted. Such physicality was a family trait, or so it was said, for Desprez’s father had been a violent man, which is why the young Josquin was cared for by his uncle and aunt.