COLOMBINA. Music for the Dukes of Medina Sidonia
ACCADEMIA DEL PIACERE
Fahmi Alqhai, viola da gamba & direction
Alena Dantcheva, soprano
Gabriel Díaz, countertenor
Ariel Hernández, tenor
Jesús García Aréjula, baritone
Javier Jiménez Cuevas, bass
Rami Alqhai, viola da gamba
Johanna Rose, viola da gamba
Carles Blanch, vihuela
Marta Graziolino, harp
Francisco Javier Núñez, organ
Pedro Estevan, percussion
Jacobo Díaz, shawm
David García, sackbut
Luis Castillo, dulcian
Video and audio recording and editing: Félix Vázquez
Programme
Praeludium-La Spagna – Anonymous & Fahmi Alqhai
Salve Sancta Parens – Anonymous
Nunca fue pena mayor – Urrede
Commo no le andare yo – Anonymous
Propiñan de Melyor – Anonymous
Gentil Dama – Anonymous (Cornago?)
Quien vos dio tal señorío – Triana
Calbidi Castigliano + Folia – Joan Ambrosio Dalza & Fahmi Alqhai
Con temor bivo – Triana
Muy crueles bozes dan – Anonymous
Interludium-Ave Maris Stella – Jacob Obrecht (Cancionero de Segovia) & Fahmi Alqhai
A los maytines era – Anonymous
Que bonito niño chiquito – Anonymous
Los hombres con gran plazer – Anonymous
Pues con sobra de tristura – Enrrique
Niña y viña – Anonymous
Postludium-La Spagna, otro género de contrapunto – Anonymous & Fahmi Alqhai
Source: Cancionero Musical de la Colombina
(Ms. 7-I-28 of the Biblioteca Capitular y Colombina, Seville)
Instrumentation and glosas: Fahmi Alqhai
Summary
Filmed in the historic church of the former Convent of San Pedro de Alcántara in December 2021, this documentary explores the historical, musical and artistic context of the project “Colombina. Music for the Dukes of Medina Sidonia”. In it, the Seville ensemble Accademia del Piacere and its director Fahmi Alqhai immerse themselves in the study and performance of their own city’s most famous and, at the same time, most forgotten manuscript: the Cancionero de la Colombina. According to recent research by the scholar Lucía Gómez, this remarkable music manuscript, which contains almost a hundred pieces, was compiled in the 15th century for the Dukes of Medina Sidonia and later acquired by Hernando Colón (Ferdinand Columbus), son of Christopher Columbus, for his impressive library. Today it is kept beside Seville Cathedral. Fahmi Alqhai and his ensemble perform a selection of its works with the vocal and instrumental forces for which the music was written, using copies of period instruments.
Accademia del Piacere immerses itself in the study and performance of one of the most famous yet most overlooked manuscripts from its own city: the Cancionero de la Colombina. This remarkable musical manuscript, which contains almost a hundred pieces, was compiled in the 15th century for the Dukes of Medina Sidonia and later acquired by Hernando Colón (Ferdinand Columbus), son of Christopher Columbus, for his impressive library. Today, it is kept in a building adjoining Seville Cathedral. Fahmi Alqhai and his ensemble perform a selection of its works with the vocal and instrumental forces for which the music was written, using replicas of period instruments.
Programme notes and lyrics
Undoubtedly one of the great musical monuments of the Spanish Renaissance, the Cancionero de la Colombina was very probably copied at the ducal court of Medina Sidonia, whose Seville residence stood very close to the central Plaza del Duque. For five centuries the manuscript has been held in the Colombina Library, one of the most important in Europe historically, housed in a building adjoining Seville Cathedral. Compiled in the years surrounding the discovery of America, the book was acquired in 1534 by the founder of the Colombina collection, Hernando Colón (Ferdinand Columbus), Columbus’s son and an extraordinary bibliophile. It contains almost a hundred pieces from the distinctive 15th-century Andalusian school, many of them still anonymous today and others identified as the work of Juan de Triana – a musician linked to the chapel of the ducal house – Juan Cornago and other composers of the time.
Exquisitely written, the manuscript is of enormous importance as the main source of the distinctive 15th-century Sevillian school of polyphony, linked to the city’s immense cathedral, then under construction, where the aforementioned Juan de Triana worked. Most of the pieces are written for three voices and are marked by that peculiar Andalusian style. It was clearly influenced by the international style that emanated from the Franco-Flemish school of polyphony (indeed, the manuscript includes pieces by Ockeghem and Urrede), but it has unique features: its own musical forms – such as villancicos in their original, typically Spanish secular form – and a passionate character explicitly acknowledged by other European composers of the time. The manuscript gains further cultural value from the crucial historical moment Seville was living through: from the city, which would thereafter hold the monopoly on trade with the Americas, its musical style would radiate to all the colonies.
Rarely performed and even more rarely recorded, this music was the focus of a project, supported by a BBVA Foundation Leonardo Grant, whose aim was the historical recovery of this Sevillian Renaissance gem. That is why it is especially rewarding for the members of Accademia del Piacere and for their director, Fahmi Alqhai.
Juan Ramón Lara
Lyrics
1. Praeludium – La Spagna
Hispalis splendens
Magna Musica.
Splendid Seville,
great music.
2. Salve Sancta Parens
Salve sancta parens,
ennyxa puérpera regem
qui celum teramque regit
in sécula seculorum.
Virgo Dei, in tua se clausit
viscera factus homo.
Gloria… Sicut erat in principio
[et nunc, et semper, et in saecula] saeculorum. Amen.
Hail, holy Mother,
who in childbirth brought forth the King
who rules heaven and earth
for ever and ever.
Virgin of God, he who was made man
enclosed himself in your womb.
Glory… As it was in the beginning,
… world without end. Amen.
3. Nunca fue pena mayor
Nunca fue pena mayor
ni tormento me faze ver
por mejor la muerte
tan estraño, con menor daño
que el tormento con el dolor
que resçibo del engaño.
Y este conosçimiento
en pensar el pensamiento
faze mis vidas tristes,
que por amores me distes.
Never was there greater sorrow
nor torment so strange
as could match the pain
that I receive from deceit.
And this knowledge
makes my days so sad,
thinking of the thought
you gave me for love.
And it makes death, with lesser harm,
seem better to me
than the torment and the pain
that I receive from deceit.
4. Commo no le andare yo
Commo no le andare yo
mesquina
tan desmayada
Dixo la niña al pastor
miras pastor que tetas
dixo el pastor a la niña
¡mas me querria dos setas!
¡…mi çurron mi çamarrón
mi cayada mi almarada
y mi yesca y mi eslabón!
How should I not go about
wretched
and so faint?
Said the girl to the shepherd:
“Look, shepherd, what breasts!”
Said the shepherd to the girl:
“I would rather have two mushrooms!”
“… my pouch, my sheepskin,
my crook, my awl,
and my tinder and my flint!”
6. Gentil Dama
Gentil dama, non se gana
otro bien de vos mirar,
sy no ver y desear.
El deleyte que se faze,
mirando vuestra beldat,
notando vuestra bondat.
Gentle lady, no other good
is gained from looking at you
but to see and to desire.
The delight that comes
from gazing on your beauty,
from noting your goodness.
7. Quien vos dio tal señorío
¿Quién vos dio tal señorío,
que, sólo que vos mire.
mi libertad cative,
que sea vuestro y no mío?
Esto causó fermosura
que quiso que vuestro fuese.
Eso mesmo la mesura
dio favor que me prendiese.
Who gave you such dominion
that, merely by my looking at you,
my freedom is made captive,
so that it is yours and not mine?
Beauty was the cause of this,
for it wished it to be yours.
And your restraint, likewise,
helped to make me your prisoner.
9. Con temor bivo
Con temor bivo, ojos tristes,
a la dicha que tenéys
que nunca más os veréys
tan ledos como vos vistes.
I live in fear, sad eyes,
of the happiness you now have,
for never again will you see yourselves
as joyful as you once were.
10. Muy crueles bozes dan
Muy crueles bozes dan
catalanes blasfemando:
Fuera, fuera, duque Juan,
que es casado el Rey Fernando!
Torna, torna, Barçelona,
a tu señor natural
[Françia juega dedos val:
¡Sus, e mate por la dona!
Correos vienen, correos van
por todo’l mundo gritando:
¡Fuera, fuera, duque Juan,
que es casado el Rey Fernando/]
Very cruel cries are raised
by Catalans, blaspheming:
Out, out, Duke John,
for King Ferdinand is married!
Return, return, Barcelona,
to your natural lord.
[France is playing “dedos val”:
Up, and kill for the lady!
Couriers come, couriers go
all over the world, crying:
Out, out, Duke John,
for King Ferdinand is married!]
11. Interludium-Ave Maris Stella
Ave, Maris Stella, Dei Mater alma,
Atque semper virgo, Felix coeli porta.
Solve vincla reis, Profer lumen caecis,
Mala nostra pelle, Bona cuncta posce.
Virgo singularis, Inter omnes mitis,
Nos culpis solutos, Mites fac et castos.
Sit laus Deo Patri, Summo Christo decus,
Spiritui Sancto, Tribus honor unus. Amen.
Hail, Star of the Sea, loving Mother of God,
and ever Virgin, happy gate of heaven.
Loose the chains of sinners, bring light to the blind,
drive away our ills, ask for every good.
Virgin beyond compare, gentlest of all,
make us, freed from sin, gentle and chaste.
Praise be to God the Father, glory to Christ most high
and to the Holy Spirit: to the Three one honour. Amen.
12. A los maytines era
A los maytines era,
antes era del alba,
que la Virgen para ella
verificara.
Nueve meses avya
que la Virgen sagrada
al su fijo traya
en el seno ençerrada.
Desque fue allegada
la ora del esperança,
parió sin dudança
al qu’el mundo fiziera
It was at matins,
before the dawn,
that the Virgin
saw it come to pass.
Nine months it had been
that the holy Virgin
had carried her son
enclosed within her womb.
When the hour of hope
had come,
she gave birth, beyond all doubt,
to the One who made the world.
13. Qué bonito niño chiquito
Composer: Anonymous
¡Qué bonito
Niño Chiquito!
Pariendo la virgen,
dos buenas mugeres
servían al parto
y fazíanle plazeres
al niño.
Desque lo ovo parido
la virgen con prudencia,
luego lo adoraron,
dándole rreverençia
al niño.
La Virgen María,
como era moçuela,
ciñólo cuerdamente
con una faxuela
al niño.
Ángeles del çielo
muy dulçe cantavan
«Gloria in excelsis Deo».
Asy lo acallavan
al niño.
What a lovely
little Child!
As the Virgin gave birth,
two good women
attended the birth
and brought delight
to the Child.
When she had given birth,
the Virgin, in her wisdom,
they straightaway adored him,
paying reverence
to the Child.
The Virgin Mary,
being but a young girl,
wisely swaddled
with a little band
the Child.
Angels from heaven
sang very sweetly
“Gloria in excelsis Deo”.
And so they hushed
the Child.
14. Los hombres con gran plazer
Los hombres con gran plazer
no saben qué se fazer.
Angeles de alto viçio,
cada quai de su oficio,
fazed al nyño serviçio
que nos quiso oy nascer.
Celestiales cortesanos,
industriat con vuestras manos
algunos juegos humanos
con que lo vamos a ver.
Y tales fuegos levemos
con que todos le alavemos
y a una voz le ofrescemos
ser de infinito poder.
E, porque más le obliguemos,
a la madre alabaremos,
grandes loores le daremos,
pues tal fue su merescer.
Reyna que tal pariste,
Dél Virgen remanesciste,
singular plazer sentiste,
al tiempo de su nasçer.
Pues de todos eres señora,
por nos al tu fijo improva,
qu’en el logar donde mora
El nos faga renascer.
Men, in their great delight,
do not know what to do.
Angels of high estate,
each in his office,
do service to the Child
who chose to be born to us today.
Heavenly courtiers,
devise with your hands
some human games
to take with us when we go to see him.
And let us bring such fires
that we may all praise him
and with one voice proclaim him
to be of infinite power.
And, to oblige him all the more,
we shall praise his mother,
we shall give her great praise,
for such was her merit.
Queen who bore such a son,
you remained a virgin after him,
you felt a singular delight
at the time of his birth.
Since you are lady of all,
implore your son for us
that in the place where he dwells
he may give us new birth.
15. Pues con sobra de tristura
Pues con sobra de tristura
distes fin al coraçón,
vos le dat la sepultura,
Señora, por galardón.
Vos fuistes la vencedora
que crudamente vençió,
vos quedáys por matadora
de la muerte que’l murió,
no nos falte compasión.
Since with excess of sadness
you put an end to the heart,
give it burial,
Lady, as its reward.
You were the victor
who cruelly conquered,
you remain the slayer
in the death it died;
let us not lack compassion.
16. Niña y viña
Niña y viña
peral y havar,
malo es de guardar.
Levantéme, o madre,
mañanita trida,
fuy cortar la rosa,
la rosa florida.
Malo es de guardar.
Viñadero malo
prenda me pedía,
dile yo un cordone
de la mi camisa.
Malo es de guardar.
Viñadero malo
prenda me demanda;
yo dile una cinta
de la muy delgada.
Malo es de guardar.
A girl and a vineyard,
a pear tree and a bean field
are hard to guard.
I rose, oh mother,
early one morning,
I went to cut the rose,
the rose in bloom.
They are hard to guard.
The wicked vine-keeper
asked me for a token;
I gave him a cord
from my shift.
They are hard to guard.
The wicked vine-keeper
demands a token of me;
I gave him a ribbon,
a very fine one.
They are hard to guard.
17. Postludium – La Spagna, otro género de contrapunto
Praefere Patriam Liberis
Parentem Decet. Amen.
Put your homeland before your children:
that befits a parent. Amen.
18. Praeludium – La Spagna (concert encore)
Hispalis splendens
Magna Musica.
Splendid Seville,
great music.
