Maróti Gábor
The liturgical functionality and technique of Adrian Willaert's church music
The cantus firmus composition technique used for liturgical functions in the late Renaissance was considered stylistically obsolete, as previously accompanying harmonization was mostly composed with homophonic editing.
The ritual advantage of the cantus firmus technique was that the faithful present at the liturgical celebration could listen to a particular part of the liturgical text that was to be highlighted without hindrance. The principle and demand for involvement as a rite subject were not yet characteristic of medieval liturgy. The prevailing view was that presence constituted the substantial content of participation; only ordained ministers were capable of concrete involvement. Church music reforms nevertheless sought to ensure that those present were able to update the texts of the ceremonies to the content of the celebration through the performance of the cantus firmus. To this end, composers tried to emphasize and enforce well-known details of Gregorian melody either on a psalm tone or on some popular melody, above the accompanying harmonies, usually in one of the tenor voices.
In Willaert's time, this technique was already considered obsolete and out of date; the composers considered it to be an archaic structural solution typical of a previous era, and therefore did not use it. In contrast, Willaert continued to use this technique in accordance with the traditions of the Franco-Flemish school. In this era, the liturgical use of popular and widely spread melodies was not at all typical of Dutch church music, but contemporary northern Italian church music typically employed melodies known to the people, hymns, and the melodic material of tropizations that fulfilled the functions of the people of the time, in addition to or instead of the Gregorian chorale melody theme. In this melody-forming process, Willaert combined the Franco-Flemish cantus firmus technique and the popular church music of Renaissance Northern Italy in order to ensure that the church works served the ceremonies as best as possible in accordance with the current liturgical function.
This compositional technique is most typical of the 4-part motets, in which medieval hymn texts are processed, with extremely versatile polyphony, so that in addition to the harmonious accompanying parts with parallel polyphonic construction (above), the cantus firmus is able to assert the designated textual content as an independent “above” part on the melody, which Willaert drew from the melody material primarily used by the faithful in terms of its popular and liturgical function; thus, even if the people could not physically participate in the performance of the works, according to the records, they often “humming, humming” the cantus firmus vocal material together with the choir. Another frequently used Willaertian device of musical expression is the compositional application of the imitated melodic formulas of the canon structure. Within this framework, he also incorporated hymnic and tropic sound relationship elements known to the people into the imitatively structured church music compositions that are richly decorated both emotionally and in content.
His secular music is characterized by the medieval rhythmic richness, lively metrical formulas, and dynamically expressive language of the French chanson style, which he boldly applied in his late church music works, thus establishing the stylistic richness characteristic of the Venetian school, which not only served the development of the church music repertoire of the time, but also facilitated the arrival of the early Baroque era in Italy. Nearing the end of his life's work, he published the collection Musica nova (1559), which contained both church and secular pieces.