Charms in disguise
The multiple and hidden facets of the Capetown Codex (15th c.)
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Let’s imagine the variety of music performed in a Benedictine monastery in northern Italy around 1500… The Capetown Grey manuscript 3.b.12 gives us an idea of the musical eclecticism that may have reigned in such a place. Several cities have been put forward as possible provenances for this book: Padua, Ferrara or Florence. One can find laude, a passion and motets, but also many secular pieces with a sacred text or copied without text. Technically, the manuscript is an anthology covering several decades of music; it ranges from repertoires dating back to the 1430s to frottole, a genre very much en vogue around 1500, through Franco-Flemish compositions. But it also presents a peculiar feature: by avoiding to write the text and the name of most of the composers, the scribe hid the profane character of this music. Thus he permitted the practice of all kinds of musical styles.
This way of disguising music has triggered our creativity. Inspired by the heteroclite nature of this source, we seek to evoke the musical practice of this monastery through the use of varied instrumental and vocal constellations. |
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