A coleção de responsórios e lamentações para voz e baixo contínuo (harpa, órgão ou cravo) do início do século XVIII do manuscrito P-BRad, MS 964

Though a commercial recording of two of the pieces exists (on Monica Piccinini and Manuel Vilas’s disc, In Festo Angelorum (2012)) the collection of responsories and lamentations for voice and basso continuo in P-BRad, MS 964 – a manuscript more widely known for its principal repertory of keyboard music in contrapuntal genres – has received little scholarly attention. This presentation will describe its contents in detail for the first time, drawing attention to the relationship of some of the compositions to chant models. The compositions give the impression that they extend from a practice of extemporising upon plainchant models and reciting tones using florid, Italian-style ornamentation, accompanied by basso continuo. Some of the music has been copied in a rougher manner in simplified versions on foldout sheets, possibly because the copyist, who seems to have been the organist and composer Pedro de Araújo (c.1640–1707), sought to experiment with the notation of the vocal part, which contains many non-metrical rhythmic groupings. Nevertheless, several transposed versions and detailed annotations concerned with further transpositions suggest that the neat version of the collection was intended to serve the needs of inexperienced performers; the different versions may therefore have been intended for several levels of technical accomplishment as well as voice types.

An engraving signed ‘chez Londry’ – probably identifiable as the French engraver Pierre Landry (1630-1701) – has been pasted into the manuscript to act as a frontispiece to the vocal music. It is a version of an engraving by Jan Sadeler (1550-1600) showing St Cecilia, two angels, an organ and a choirbook opened to a five-part setting of ‘Fiat cor meum’ by the Flemish composer Daniel Raymundi (c.1558-1634). The corrupted version of Raymundi’s music as it appears in Landry’s engraving, which was altered again when it was recopied in score into P-BRad, MS 964, will be discussed.