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Francisco Valls (1672-1747) the Missa Scala Aretina and the Mapa Armónico Práctico
Background of Francisco Valls
In 1696 Francisco Valls was headhunted from the Church of Santa María del Mar, Barcelona, to the post of Maestro de capilla at Barcelona Cathedral. Barcelona ( Catalan bəɾsəˈlonə Spanish baɾθeˈlona is the capital and most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia Kapellmeister (kəˈpɛlˌmaɪstər is a German word designating a person in charge of music-making He wrote 10 masses, 17 psalm settings, 30 motets, several other sacred items and 141 secular compositions. Mass is a fundamental concept in Physics, roughly corresponding to the Intuitive idea of how much Matter there is in an object Psalms ( Hebrew: Tehilim, תהילים, or "praises" is a book of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament) included In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions Many of these are manuscripts lodged in the Biblioteca de Catalunya in Barcelona.
Composition of the Missa Scala Aretina
The Missa Scala Aretina, so called because it uses a scale based cantus firmus, (prominently audible in the Kyrie), caused a major musical controversy between 1715 and 1720. In Music, a cantus firmus ("fixed song" is a pre-existing Melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition. Kýrie is from the Greek word κύριε (kyrie the Vocative case of κύριος (kyrios meaning O Lord. Pro and anti groups were roughly equal, the famous composer Alessandro Scarlatti had given an opinion, mildly opposed to Valls' ideas. Alessandro Scarlatti (May 2 1660 &ndash October 24 1725 was an Italian Baroque Composer especially famous for his Operas and chamber Cantatas In the Qui tollis at bar 120 (López-Calo edition) the second soprano enters on an unprepared 9th chord causing a gratuitous semitonal dissonance with a bflat, a, f, d and low g sounding simultaneously on the words miserere nobis. This article is related to a series of articles under the main article Voice type. The unpreparedness of the entry rather than the discord is the problem. It is doubtful whether such a chord would have raised highbrows in England where the dissonant music of Henry Purcell or William Lawes had been admired at court and church. Henry Purcell (ˈpɜrsəl 10 September 1659 (? – 21 November 1695 was an English Baroque Composer. William Lawes (April 1602 &ndash 24 September 1645) was an English Composer and Musician. Many of Valls' other works, however, use harmony which was highly unconventional at the time (see below). In Western music, harmony is the use of different pitches simultaneously and chords actual or implied in Music.
The original singing parts of the Missa Scala Aretina are well worn and often turned, suggesting that the Missa was performed many times.
The Missa Scala Aretina is scored for 3 vocal choirs, (SAT) (soloists), (SSAT) (soloists) and the choir (SATB). Instruments are 2 oboes doubling 2 violins, 2 trumpets and violone (cello?). Choir I has harp continuo, choirs II and III separate organs, each with a doubling violone or bassoon.
The Missa Scala Aretina is a typical baroque piece, sounding reminiscent of Biber's Missa Salisburgensis but also looking back to Italian Colossal Baroque music. The Missa Salisburgensis à 53 voci is perhaps the most large-scale piece of extant sacred Baroque music, an archetypical work of the Colossal Baroque. The Colossal Baroque style is a name which has been coined to describe a number of compositions from the 17th and 18th centuries composed in an opulent magnificent and large-scaled style The Kyrie is sumptuous but diatonic with strong trumpet lines. Kýrie is from the Greek word κύριε (kyrie the Vocative case of κύριος (kyrios meaning O Lord. Aching suspensions are not long in arriving however when the text requires them such as the mysterious et incarnatus. Like Biber's Mass the Creed is highly coloured, with descendit being a descending scale and coelis ascending etc. . The Crucifixus begins in D-major but sinks a tone to a C-minor Tierce de Picardie cadence. This is answered by an A-major resurrexit.
The Mapa Armónico Práctico
In retirement Valls wrote a treatise on harmonic theory, Mapa Armónico Práctico. A facsimile of the manuscript has recently been published. It contains an exposition of the author's views on musical theory and practice and a large number of musical examples from his works. All the vocal music by Valls from Mapa Armónico Prácticoand a few instrumental pieces have been transcribed and are in the public domain. See links below.
The Latin choral works in the Mapa are of particular interest. They include 4 solo sacred arias, one duet, a series of sacred canons, motets and movements from the Mass (including the Christe Eleison from the Missa Scala Aretina) and from the Te Deum. This article is about the musical term "aria" For other meanings or uses of the word see Aria (disambiguation. A duet is a Musical composition or piece for two Performers In Classical music the term is most often used for a composition for two singers In Music, a canon is a contrapuntal composition that employs a Melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration (e In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions Mass is a fundamental concept in Physics, roughly corresponding to the Intuitive idea of how much Matter there is in an object Some of these works are polychoral and/or have more or less full accompaniment. This article is about the musical term See Antiphon (person the orator of ancient Greece Many of the works use highly unconventional (for the time) musical techniques. Examples with particularly interesting use of dissonance include Valls' motets, Domine vim patior, Cor mundum meum and O vos omnes.
There are a number of magnificent accompanied pieces. These include the 10 part In te Domine speravi with full orchestral accompaniment including an opening trumpet fanfare and a movement, Cum sancto spiritu, from an unidentified mass.
Valls' sacred choral works (both Latin and Spanish) frequently focus on the Virgin Mary. These works include his best known motet, Tota pulchra es (not included in the Mapa) which was the only work, apart from the Missa Scala Aretina, to be performed regularly in the centuries following his death. Tota pulchra es is an old Catholic prayer written in the fourth century AD There are also a number of canons, motets and villancicos in the Mapa on the same subject.
The sacred works in Spanish from the Mapa come in two distinct categories. First there are a series of 4 part villancicos (or extracts from Villancicos). These are less adventurous in musical technique than the latin works. Secondly there are some more ambitious complete villancicos in 8 or 12 parts. These include Quien será decid and Al combite que Amor hoy previene. The lyrics of these villancicos are mostly quite obscure.
Valls appears to have had an interest in medieval philosophers. His works include a setting of Saint Thomas Aquinas' hymn O memoriale mortis. He also composed a rather overblown 8 part ode to that saint in Spanish with full orchestral accompaniment. More impressive is his three part motet setting of the prayer by Saint Augustine of Hippo O sacramentum pietatis (from the latter's Tractates on the gospel of John). In this motet Valls uses variations in rhythm, time signatures and dynamics to express the changing mood of the text.
The Mapa includes two operatic works in Italian style, one of these is for chorus. One is a mournful tenor aria apparently composed for the character of Mark Antony in Egypt. Marcus Antonius (in Latin: M·ANTONIVS·M·F·M·N ( c January 14 83 BC&ndash August 1, 30 BC known in English as Mark This article is about the country of Egypt For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Egypt topics.
The instrumental works in the Mapa include fugues, "trocados" (works using contrary motion) and cancrizans canons. A crab canon is an arrangement of two things that are complementary and backward similar to a Palindrome. There is a composition for strings which uses what Valls calls the "enharmonic sharp", but which seems different from the orthodox conception of that expression. Valls' enharmonic sharp appears to raise the notes A, C, D, F and G by three quarters of a tone and the notes B and E by a quarter tone.
Modern performances
The first performance of the Missa Scala Aretina in modern times in Barcelona was given by an English choir, the London Oratory Choir at the International Music Festival as late as 1978.
There is a modern edition: Francisco Valls, Missa Scala Aretina, edited by José López-Calo, (Novello,1975). (From Ms. M. 1489, Biblioteca de Catalunya, Barcelona. ).
There is a CD by The London Oratory Choir, (CRD,3371) (1994) and another CD by Gustav Leonhardt (CD 05472 77842 2) on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.
There are many other compositions by Valls surviving in the archives of the Biblioteca de Catalunya in Barcelona and elsewhere. Most of them are unedited, but critical editions of some of the works are available from Dinsic Publicacions Musicals. Others works are available from Scalaaretina, the Choral Public Domain Library, Musica de Hispania and the Werner Icking Music Archive. (see links below).
External links
- Francisco Valls free scores in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
- Free scores by Francisco Valls in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
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Commercial publishers of some of Valls' music. The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL is a Sheet music archive which focuses on choral and vocal Music in the Public domain. The Werner Icking Music Archive, often abbreviated WIMA, is a web archive of Public domain Sheet music. |