L'homme armé

L'homme armé was a French secular song from the time of the Renaissance. It was the most popular tune used for musical settings of the Ordinary of the Mass: over 40 separate compositions entitled "Missa L'homme armé" survive from the period.

Notes, text and translation

Origin

The origins of the popularity of the song and the importance of the armed man are the subject of various theories. Some have suggested that the 'armed man' represents St Michael the Archangel (1) (certainly the composer Johannes Regis (c.1425 – c.1496) seems to have intended that allusion in his "Dum sacrum mysterium/Missa l'homme armé" based upon the melody, which incorporates various additional trope texts and cantus firmus plainchants in honour of St Michael the Archangel), whilst others have suggested it merely represents the name of a popular tavern (Maison L'Homme Arme) near Dufay's rooms in Cambrai (2). It may also represent the arming for a new crusade against the Turks (3). There is ample evidence to indicate that it held special significance for the Order of the Golden Fleece (4). It is useful to note that the first appearance of the song was exactly contemporaneous with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks (1453), an event which had a huge psychological effect in Europe; composers such as Guillaume Dufay composed laments for the occasion. Yet another possibility is that all three theories are true, given the feeling of urgency in organizing a military opposition to the recently victorious Ottomans which permeated central and northern Europe at the time.

Another recently proposed theory for the origin of the tune is that it is a stylised combination of a street cry and a trumpet call, and may have originated as early as the late 14th century, or perhaps early 15th, due to its use of the major prolation, which was the commonest metre at the time. [Blackburn, p. 53-54, and n.9.]

Use in the Latin Mass

"L'homme armé" is especially well remembered today because it was so widely used by Renaissance composers as a cantus firmus for the Latin Mass. It was probably used for this purpose more than any other secular song: over 40 settings are known. Many composers of the Renaissance set at least one mass on this melody; the two settings by Josquin, the "Missa L'homme armé super voces musicales", and the "Missa L'homme armé sexti toni" are among the best known. Other composers who wrote more than one setting include Pierre de La Rue, Cristóbal Morales, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. A cycle of six settings, all anonymous but probably by the same composer, survives in a Neapolitan manuscript which was supposedly a gift to Beatrice of Aragon of some of the favorite music of Charles the Bold. [Blackburn, p. 54]

While the practice of writing masses on the tune lasted into the seventeenth century, including a late setting by Carissimi, the majority of mass settings of "L'homme armé", approximately 30, are from the period between 1450 and 1510. [Fallows, Grove online]

One of the earliest datable uses of the melody itself was in the combinative chanson "Il sera pour vous conbatu/L'homme armé" ascribed to Robert Morton, which now is believed to probably date from around 1463, due to historical references in the text. Another possibly earlier version of the tune is an anonymous three-voice setting from the Mellon Chansonnier, which also cannot be precisely dated. In 1523 Pietro Aron, in his treatise "Thoscanello" suggested that Antoine Busnois was the composer of the tune; while tantalizing, since the tune is stylistically consistent with Busnois, there is no other source to corroborate Aron, and he was writing approximately 70 years after the first appearance of the melody. Richard Taruskin has argued that Busnois wrote the earliest known mass on the melody, but this is disputed, many scholars preferring to see the older Guillaume Dufay as the creator of the first "L'homme armé" Mass. Other composers whose settings of the tune may date from the 1450s include Guillaume Faugues, Johannes Regis, and Johannes Ockeghem. [Fallows, Grove online]

The tune is singularly well-adapted to contrapuntal treatment. The phrases are clearly delineated, and there are several obvious ways to construct canons. It is also unusually easy to recognize within a contrapuntal texture.

Modern treatments

Composers still occasionally turn to this song for spiritual or thematic inspiration. In 1968 the British composer Peter Maxwell Davies wrote his "Missa super l'homme armé." [ [http://www.maxopus.com/works/missa.htm Missa super l'homme armé] ] American composer Mark Alburger includes settings of L'homme armé in his Deploration Passacaglias (1992) in the first (Ockeghem) and tenth (Bach) movements. The Welsh composer Karl Jenkins continues a 600-year tradition with "The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace", written in 1999 to a commission from the Royal Armouries to mark the millennium. Christopher Marshall wrote "L'homme armé: Variations for Wind Ensemble" in 2003.

References

* "Penguin History of Music, Vol 2" ed. Robertson & Stevens (1963)
* Pryer's article on Dufay in "New Oxford Companion to Music", ed Arnold (1983)
* Lockwood in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980) (quoted by Peter Phillips, in notes to 1989 recording of the two Josquin masses)
* David Fallows: "L'homme armé." Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed 2004–2007), [http://www.grovemusic.com (subscription access)]
* Bonnie J. Blackburn, "Masses on Popular Songs and Syllables", in Richard Sherr, ed., "The Josquin Companion." Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-19-816335-5

Notes

External links

*The translation above is adapted slightly from [http://www.unh.edu/music/alamire/ca1-L%27homme.htm program notes] for the early music group [http://www.unh.edu/music/alamire/ Capella Alamire] .

*An extensive listing of sources and critical commentary on Masses based on the "L'homme armé" tune, created as part of a Spring 2002 seminar by Mary Kay Duggan at the University of California, Berkely, is available at [http://sheetmusic.berkeley.edu/courses/Music220/homme-arme.html Reform and music: 1450-1600] (accessed 3/18/08).