The Empire Resounds: Music in the Days of Charles V (review)

The Empire Resounds: Music in the Days of Charles V. Edited by Francis Maes. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1999. [vi, 168 p. ISBN 90-6186-981-1. BEF 700.]

This collection of essays, "an exploration of the musical milieu of Charles V" (the subtitle of Jan Nuchelmans's introduction), was conceived as a companion to a concert series organized by the Flanders Festival in 1999. Its contents are eclectic in approach and purpose (and, presumably, intended readership), ranging from introductory "overviews" of context and repertory to more narrowly focused articles. Given that performances were at the heart of the project, as explained by Nuchelmans, it would have been useful to see the concert program devised to explore some of the themes raised here. The "problem" of how to make such repertory accessible to a modern audience is addressed in Francis Maes's essay. Maes considers that, in contrast to our reaction to a painting by Titian, the music of the age of Charles V "comes over as hermetic and cerebral" (p. 14)--are these indeed the qualities that those attending the concerts perceived, I wonder? --and he emphasizes that an essential means to overcome such impenetrability is to seek "to understand the music . . . within the context in which it was made and functioned" (p. 14). For the most part, the book is devoted to explorations of such contexts rather than to detailed scrutiny of the music.

Part 2, "Charles V and 'His' Music: Facts, Interpretations, Hypotheses," opens with Honey Meconi's introduction to the dynastic context and the sources of the "Netherlands court complex," followed by Bruno Boukaert's brief account of Charles's capilla flamenca. The next two articles turn more to the "interpretations" and "hypotheses" promised in the section title: Alan Lewis propounds the intriguing and convincing theory that Gombert's first book of four-voice motets may have been assembled as an apologia for the disgraced composer, and Kate van Orden considers a painting by Frans Floris in relation to shifting ideals of kingship between the reigns of Charles and Philip II. Part 3 ("Charles V: A Life Story in Music") is a survey by Ignace Bossuyt of Charles's political career and of music either directly related to Charles or originating in the relevant geographical areas. Given the lack of an English translation of Albert Dunning's Die Staatsmotette, 1480-1555 (Utrecht: Oosthoek, 1970), Bossuyt's account is useful as a compact collation in English of examples of relevant topical or occasional pieces.

The book followed closely on the heels of debates that were stimulated by the four-hundredth anniversary of Philip II's death in 1598 and concerned his attitudes to music and his role as patron. It is no harsh criticism of this collection to observe that the musical tastes and attitudes to patronage of Charles often seem elusive here: as van Orden comments, "In the end, what we know about Charles V and Philip II as connoisseurs or patrons of music--as is so often the case with royalty--is primarily anecdotal, circumstantial, iconographic, and refracted by the conventions governing the portrayal of kingship" (p. 81). In her own stimulating discussion of the differing emphases in the representation of Charles (warrior) and Philip (champion of peace and the arts), van Orden rightly notes that this contrast is far from consistently maintained. One might mention, for example, Pedro Perret's engraving for Cabrera de Córdoba's Filipe Segundo, rey de España, showing Philip in armor, sword upraised, defender of the faith.

The "overview" sections of the book generally fulfill their function well, although there are some puzzling failures to mention or reflect significant recent or older work. For example, it is stated that Josquin Desprez died in 1521 "at the age of some 80 years" (p. 106), with no reference to the information that has come to light regarding his supposed early Milanese service. Likewise not mentioned is Herbert Kellman's critique from the...