by Donald Greig
Andrew realised immediately its significance. Here, in the motet, the phrase occurred on the word mei, the dative form of the personal pronoun meaning ‘to me’. He could barely excuse himself for not noticing it, even if it was hidden in the middle of the texture almost like a leitmotif rather than, as was the convention, being part of the opening statement. This is my piece, Ockeghem was saying, and here is my signature. Andrew had spotted the use of the canon at the fourth, the interval used in Prenez sur moi, but failed to notice this specific musical quotation. What else had he missed? Setting aside his immediate excitement at this new proof with a reflex that he had developed over the last twenty-four hours, he claimed the insight as his own.
‘Yes, Prenez sur moi. You spotted it. Well done,’ he said to the tenors, his praise delivered in a tone of weary superciliousness that he habitually adopted when speaking to his students.
‘Hurry up please, it’s time. Hurry up please, it’s time,’ said Allie, relaying the brasserie’s request to pay up and leave.
‘Any last Sambucas?’ asked Ollie, prompting another chorus of ‘Sam-boo-kah’.
Allie and Ollie were well in their cups now, Emma noted, Allie’s eyelids almost at half-mast, Ollie’s eyes unnaturally lucent as if he’d picked up some new scent. There was no stopping them now and it would be unwise to, Ollie in particular likely to bridle at any suggestion that he wasn’t in control.
‘It’s a really interesting project,’ she said to Andrew, ‘but we need to talk about it more. Can I keep this?’ She pointed to the manuscript. ‘I assume you’ve got a copy of the original somewhere?’
‘Yes, of course. I wrote this out especially for you on the way over,’ he lied. ‘It’s only rough, but I’ll do a proper edition and send it to you when I get home.’
‘You mean you worked on this last night on the plane? Did you get any sleep at all?’
‘Not really,’ Andrew admitted.
It was extraordinary that he was still standing and explained to Emma why he looked so terrible. ‘You should get some sleep,’ she said. ‘Get back to the hotel and we’ll settle things up here.’
‘A hundred and twenty francs each,’ shouted Allie as if on cue. ‘More if you had Sambucas. They’re twelve francs each.’
Andrew was suddenly exhausted. Ahead of him lay sleep, even if it was in a sagging single bed. With people clustered around him he’d begun to feel hot and claustrophobic, the lights were too bright and, as he turned, all he saw were Susan’s shiny red lips before the room started to spin. He sat down quickly and groped in his briefcase for his wallet, as voices swirled around him.
‘That’s the right amount. You get back to your hotel. Are you all right on your own?’ It was Emma.
He would be fine, said Andrew; he just needed sleep. He picked up his briefcase and said goodbye. Several members of the group waved and Susan pecked him on the cheek and, as the waiter unlocked the front door for him, he heard that strange chant again – ‘Sam-boo-kah! Sam-boo-kah!’ – followed by screams.
CHAPTER 18
The Memoirs of Geoffroy Chiron: Livre VI ed. Francis Porter
Martius 17, 1524
The pain is much worse now. I have not slept at all this night, the bells that tolled the hour my only company. The tincture Cosset gave me for the pain has no effect and I will summon him to my bed when daylight comes. I have not eaten for three days yet I have no hunger, my stomach tender and swollen like that of a pregnant woman. I do not know why God has chosen to punish me in this way and my only hope is that my affliction upon this earth is weighed against my time in Purgatory. I pray to God and to Jesus Christ, my only saviour, and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, that my suffering is brief. I have touched the bones of St Martin; I have given generously to the Church and to the poor; I have served God in His Temple throughout my life. I trust in the Lord’s judgement and today I will make my full and final confession before God.
Circumdederunt me funes mortis et torrentes diabuli terruerunt me. Funes inferi circumdederunt me; praevenerunt me laquei mortis. In tribulatione mea invocabo Dominum et ad Deum meum clamabo exaudiet de templo suo vocem meam; et clamor meus ante faciem eius veniet in aures eius. [The sorrows of death surrounded me and the torrents of iniquity troubled me. The sorrows of hell encompassed me; and the snares of death prevented me. In my affliction I called upon the Lord, and I cried to my God; and he heard my voice from his holy temple: and my cry before him came into his ears.]
Easter fell early in the year that Jehan composed his Miserere mei [1491]. Spring, he said, was a creative time in nature where the symbol of our risen Lord was manifest in the growth of plants and trees, a sign of hope and optimism; it was the autumn and winter months, the time for preserving and storing the fruits of the summer, when we transcribed the music. As the scripture says: Omnia tempus habent et suis spatiis transeunt universa sub caelo [All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven].
As always, I was not involved in the earliest stages of Jehan’s composition. It was most frustrating. What have you been doing, I would ask him. Composing, he would reply. That, I knew, consisted of him sitting in a room on his own, thinking.
How, I asked, hoping he might ask for my help, could he keep all that music in his head? How could he test it, rearrange it, hear it? I had asked such questions about his masses and motets many times before and he had always answered them by saying that it was like the jugglers at the Place Foire le Roi: he needed to study the musical ideas as they tumbled over each other in the aether. I could only marvel at his great abilities, like those of Orpheus himself.
When finally spring had turned into summer then faded into autumn, he asked if I could come to his house. Knowing that the motet would be written in thirty-four parts, I brought plenty of vellum with me; I even stopped at the scriptorium in St Gatien and begged for extra supplies. He laughed when he saw me carrying such a heavy burden.
‘You won’t need all that,’ he said. ‘One sheet of vellum will be enough.’
I thought that he meant that we were only to work on one part at a time, and perhaps in time I would need another thirty-three. Realising this, he smiled.
‘It is a canon,’ he said. ‘And a canon takes up very little room.’
Thereupon he described the design. The bassus part would be the model for the tenor part, and the contratenor and discantus parts would be canons independent of each other. He explained that it was his commentary on the old style of composition which, for too long, had privileged the tenor over the other parts, as a consequence of which tenor singers considered themselves more important than other members in the choir. He sat back in his chair and I took up my stylus. The piece was to be in tempus imperfectum with minor prolation, at a slightly slower speed than was customary because, with all those parts, the ear would not otherwise be able to discern the details.
When we had completed the bassus part, he dictated the Latin instructions that would instruct the other basses and the tenors how to extract their parts from that single example.
‘So now, Geoffroy, we have written sixteen parts. That didn’t take long! And can you tell me, how many mensura we have written? I would like to get some sense of the scale of the piece.’
I added up the units of mensura. There were ninety-two.
‘Ah, ninety-two. A good number, don’t you think?’
I mumbled something. Whatever his purpose, I assumed it was beyond my understanding.
‘Oh, and Geoffroy. Eight parts for the basses and eight for the tenors? What do you get if you multiply them?’
I knew that, as Treasurer, he was knowledgeable about arithmetic and had no need of my help to produce the answer of sixty-four. And, because he had asked the question idly, as if something new was occurring to him, I offered no answer.
‘Sixty-four,’ he said. ‘Sixty-four. Ninety-two. Good numbers. Familiar numbers, don’t you think?’
I nodded. They were familiar, but I couldn’t work out why. I und
erstood from his prompting that there must be some deeper significance, and I searched my memory. Psalm 64 [65]: Tibi silens laus Deus in Sion et tibi reddetur votum. Exaudi orationem donec ad te omnis caro veniat [A hymn, O God, becometh thee in Sion: and a vow shall be paid to thee in Jerusalem. O hear my prayer: all flesh shall come to thee.]? No. Psalm 92 [93]: Deus ultionum, Domine Deus ultionum ostendere. Elevare qui iudicas terram redde vicissitudinem superbis [The Lord is the God to whom revenge belongeth: the God of revenge hath acted freely. Lift up thyself, thou that judgest the earth: render a reward to the proud.]? No. Certainly, as the cube of four, sixty-four possessed a symmetry, but ninety-two did not possess similar properties. I was confused and beginning to feel rather foolish. Jehan’s smile, affectionate as it was, was also beginning to annoy me. Then he gently chastised me.
‘Geoffroy Chiron. Geoffroy Chiron. Did you never as a choirboy work out the numerical value of your name? Did you never work out the cipher and did you never call each other numbers? I know you did, for I heard boys doing it all the time.’
I understood. The value of my name was ninety-two and sixty-four: ninety-two for Geoffroy and sixty-four for Chiron. I could not find the words to thank him, humbled as I was, and he smiled at me, pleased by my delight.
Then he explained that he had been inspired by further correspondences and had decided to celebrate it in musical form. His initials, J and O, had values of nine and fourteen respectively. ‘Multiply those by four and you have the number ninety-two, the same as your first name.’ His name, Johannes Ockeghem, had values of eighty-one and sixty-four. Therefore there would be eight bassus parts and eight tenor parts which, when multiplied, created the number sixty-four, the value of his and my last names. And there would be nine contratenor parts and nine discantus parts which, similarly treated, gave the value of eighty-one, the value of his first name. ‘I won’t even need to sign the manuscript!’ he declared triumphantly.
It did not take long to complete the task. There it lay, a rough outline of a composition in thirty-four parts, yet upon the page were shown only three. It was like one of the illuminated pages by Jean Bourdichon or Jean Fouquet, not in its surface beauty but in the way that, through its density, it contained detail and beauty in miniature that could keep one occupied for hours. And as I copied it out later that evening, I began to appreciate its subtleties and discover the balance and design that Jehan had been working on all those months, an order and harmony in each of the parts and of the whole. More than ever, I was anxious to hear it.
Jehan wrote to Compère to tell him that he had completed the composition. It would obviously be some time before the performance could be organised. With so many singers involved, all in different cities and towns across the lands, it would be difficult to find a date on which all could attend, and Compère was not born to administer; he could barely take care of himself.
Nevertheless, Compère wrote back immediately and assured Jehan that he would begin planning. He was still in the employ of the King, Charles VIII, who had turned his back on Tours and was travelling around the country to raise money for future wars [1491], a pursuit that required Compère to accompany him as a demonstration of the artistic aspirations of France. This frustrating, wandering lifestyle was a further threat to the planning and the performance at St Quentin, yet Compère assured Jehan that it would take place.
And, indeed, confirmation of his good intentions arrived in the form of a letter from Perchon, the famous composer, who wrote to his former teacher saying that he looked forward to seeing him at ‘the event that Compère is organising’. At that time everything seemed possible and I was happy for Jehan. He was now an old man and increasingly it was me who bore the burden of his duties to St Martin.
In the autumn of that year, we had a surprise visitor: Josquin Desprez. He had been granted two months’ leave from the Sistine Chapel in Rome to obtain benefices in various churches in Northern France. When Compère had been granted his benefice at the church of St Quentin, he had done so on the understanding that he brought with him experience and commitment, of which hosting the performance of Jehan’s piece was a demonstration. Yet Desprez’s attitude to the benefices offered by churches in the North can be summed up in one word: money. St Omer, Bourges, Amiens and Chartres were amongst his destinations, though he concentrated on towns in the region of his birth: St Ghislain, Cambrai, Douai and Tournai.
Although Desprez was not pursuing benefices in Tours, he made the city his first stop. He seemed different. He still bore a fierce, dark countenance, yet his speech was more controlled, his anger tempered.
Jehan invited me to dinner and assured me that Desprez would, on this occasion at least, acknowledge my presence. Though I did not look forward to it, the meal passed agreeably enough. Desprez was older, and with age had come a less choleric humour, though I still did not trust him. He was clearly dissatisfied with life in Rome and complained of the politics and the favouritism, the heat and the Italians themselves. He was, at least, speaking honestly.
Jehan and he discussed music. Desprez had brought some of his recent compositions and Jehan was genuine in his admiration. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps it was the genuine desire to forgive the differences of the past but, for whatever reason, Jehan, in answering Desprez’s casual enquiry about whether he had composed anything recently, told him of his Miserere mei. Desprez immediately became animated, saying that he too had considered writing a larger piece, that he was interested in six-part composition and that we should not be bound by tradition and limit our expectations. Jehan did not show him the sketch, but described its construction which Desprez said excited him. And when and where would it be performed, he asked? Jehan explained that Compère was organising the event to which Desprez would obviously be invited. At the very mention of Compère’s name, it was as if he was possessed by a demon. Desprez’s brow thrust forward, his lips curled and his eyes turned black. But suddenly, in an instant, he became the relaxed, charming man that he had been earlier that evening. Was Jehan sure, he asked, that Compère was capable of organising this event? Could he, Desprez, perhaps help in any way? Jehan thanked him, and assured him that Compère was capable of making the necessary arrangements and neither of us thought any more of it.
Months passed and Jehan and Compère continued to correspond, though nothing further was mentioned of the plans for the performance. It was I, rather than Jehan, who was the more anxious about the fate of his composition. I urged him to contact Compère; the King still planned to invade Italy, and thus Compère, still part of the Royal retinue, was detained. Jehan, though, was not so easily seduced as I was by a glorious vision of the first performance.
After many requests, finally Jehan broached the subject in a letter. Compère’s reply came as a shock. Desprez had written to Compère some time ago – not long after Desprez’s visit to Tours – and informed him that, in consultation with Jehan, Desprez had now taken on the responsibility of arranging the performance of Jehan’s grand motet. Desprez said that the church where he had recently obtained a benefice, St Géry in Cambrai, was better located – those invited would find it far easier to travel there, and the larger town would have no difficulty in offering hospitality to such numbers – and that Jehan had agreed. But the deception went deeper. Desprez also maintained that he had visited Jehan at Jehan’s request, thereby implying that Desprez was favoured by France’s oldest composer. Not only was this lie designed to advance Desprez’s reputation, it was an obvious attempt to suggest that Desprez was a closer friend to Jehan than Compère.
I was very angry. I railed against Desprez’s treachery and accused him of many sins, chief amongst them jealousy. I suspected then – and voiced as much to Jehan – that there was more here than Desprez’s foolish rivalry with Compère. Desprez was now a recognised figure, renowned throughout Europe, with no need of Jehan’s support. What I feared – and what time would eventually prove – was that Desprez’s hunger for fame and renown had grown to the point where he f
elt threatened by every other composer and composition. And Jehan’s thirty-four-part motet was no exception. Josquin Desprez’s fame had risen as Jehan’s had declined, but Desprez feared that the wheel might turn once more and that the name of Jehan Ockeghem would eclipse that of Josquin Desprez.
Jehan, as ever, chose to find a more charitable explanation. Had I not pointed out on several occasions that Compère was unable to organise the simplest event? Perhaps Desprez, knowing this and aware of Compère’s duties to the King, had chosen to take the responsibility upon himself rather than let the opportunity slip away?
At my insistence, Jehan wrote to Desprez to discover the truth. There was no reply. Once again, Jehan wrote. Again, no reply. And then, quite by chance, two incidents occurred that confirmed my suspicions.
Firstly, Jehan was visited by Johannes Tinctoris who was travelling back to Italy from Nivelles. Many younger composers came to pay their respects to a man who they knew could not live much longer and, in the case of Tinctoris, I think the real reason that he was there was to apologise. He now described as ‘youthful errors’ the things that he had written about Jehan in his Proportionale musices and elsewhere, and Jehan, in an act that he described as ‘the gift of age’, forgave him.
I was unable to attend their final meeting, but I know that the two men talked for some time. Privately I gave thanks. (I’m sure the fault is mine, but I have never been able to understand the fascination of music theory and have always preferred its practice.) The subject turned to that of composers, and Tinctoris mentioned that the clergy at St Géry in Cambrai were annoyed with Desprez. It was something to do, he said, with Desprez promising to visit them at least once a year – a promise which, hiding behind the skirts of the Pope, he had already broken and which he did not intend to honour. Tinctoris had heard the story from a singer at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Cambrai and could not confirm all the details. The theorist did not know of its significance to Jehan; if Desprez’s commitment to St Géry was negligible, then clearly there would be no performance of Jehan’s Miserere mei.