Jacobus Gallus, composer, biography, discography

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	Jacobus Gallus
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Gallus, Jacobus


	JACOBUS GALLUS

At the end of the 17th century Gallus is still mentioned by the French composer and theoretician Sébastien de Brossard, whose immense collection of musical manuscripts and prints was to form the core of King Louis XIV’s musical library: in the margin of his catalogue Brossard notes, in reference to the Moralia, that the music of it is “among the most excellent of that time”... After a relative eclipse in the 18th century (except for some manuscripts of the motet Ecce quomodo still being re-copied), Gallus’s compositions returned in force in the following century, where they followed the renewal of interest in the old polyphonists caused by the various musical societies in Europe in favour of religious music for unaccompanied choir. Principally from 1840, numerous anthologies spread his music to choral societies and church choirs, principally in Germany (Musica Sacra in Berlin, 1839-1865; Musica Divina in Ratisbon, 1853-1865; Musica Sacra of Crommer, 1860-1876...), but also in Paris, thanks to the publications of the Niedermeyer school in the 1850s. The growing interest in Gallus’s music, which coincided with the beginnings of musicology and was concerned with all the old polyphonists, culminated with the publication of the complete Opus Musicum, from 1899 to 1919, in an edition by the musicologist Josip Mantuani in the series Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich. < p/> The interest of Mantuani’s publication arises from its documentary and editorial quality: this edition is the fruit of patient work researching the sources, which still today makes the vast introduction edited by Mantuani by way of preface to the whole the point of departure for all study of Gallus. Interest also comes from Mantuani’s own path. A Slovene, he for the first time drew the attention of the musical world to the historical and geographical peculiarities of Gallus’s place origin, underlining how much this milieu could, perhaps, help in understanding his originality.

The Slovene trail

Another aspect of the bibliographic tradition concerning Gallus is in fact provided by the abundant literature devoted to the composer in his homeland itself, Carniola. A Germanic province of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries, then between 1918 and 1991 being succeeded as one of the constituents of the various Yugoslav states, Carniola today is one of the regions (Kranjska) constituting the Republic of Slovenia. It would not be surprising to find in Gallus’ own country a somewhat different reading of the composer’s path. < p/> In Gallus’s time the Slovene countries were situated at the south-east borders of the Empire. Exposed to the Turkish menace more closely than the rich regions of the interior, they were also situated on the paths crossing between Italy and Central Europe, between Austria and for a long time the Duchy of Carniola would be the privileged meeting-place of Slav, Germanic and Italian influences, whose often harmonious synthesis or juxtaposition fashioned the Slovene landscape, notably architecturally, in a way still visible today. < p/> But was Gallus a Slovene? Neither the Germanic patronymic of Handl he used, nor the indication of his geographical origin as Carniola, seems to imply that in an absolute fashion, and one must go back to an extract from the preface he wrote to his Harmoniæ Morales (the title of the first book of Moralia) to get an indication of it, perhaps: “The Italians amuse themselves with madrigals, they are carried away by Neapolitan songs, they feed and almost swim in villanelles. Our compatriots cling to, and sparkle at, what is written in their language; in accord with the Germanic, the Gallic is transported with joy by it, gorges himself on it and satisfies himself with it.”

Whatever Gallus’s nationality may have been (for that matter, a very anachronistic question for the period in question), his “Carniolian” origin however makes him contemporary, in his youth, with the spread of Protestant ideas in Carniola. These in fact found an important impetus thanks to the efforts of the pastor Primoz Trubar, who ingeniously conceived turning to advantage an association between the new ideas and the written Slovene language, then little prevalent in documents. In publishing the first catechism in Slovene (1550), he assured a wide spread of Protestantism among the population. The studies made in Slovenia are greatly interested in recalling this particular context, which could help to grasp the originality of Gallus’s path. It also explains why at first it is essentially in the monasteries that Gallus’s activity can be situated, for it is from an abbey, the powerful Cistercian institution of Sticna in Lower Carniola, that it has been possible to place the probable setting of his musical formation, in any case the only one in the province able to supply the basis for such tuition.

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