Egmont

Egmont and the ff-boom

by Daniel Schell .(Translation: Jacqueline Stokes (1978) revision Elaine Chew (2002)

From Spain…

I have a vivid memory of leaving the snow-capped summits of Aragon in the spring of 1975 for the heat of Valencia down below. There, a triumphal festival awaited us, the final event- of the Spanish tour of my group COS. End-of-tour fatigue and on-the-road blues were not enough, however, to weaken our firm belief in a musical Europeanism and ourselves as the most enthusiastic missionaries of it.

The triumphal (sorry to insist) final concert was followed by an event which marked me for life. As I came down off the stage, I was approached by a man from the radio who wanted to know why we had included in our repertoire the Paco de Lucia piece ”Entra dos aguas". (Paco de Lucia, as you may remember, had recently risen to fame all over Cataluñia due to the aforementioned composition which, contrary to popular belief in the grotty discotheque “Ole" type of Spanish music, was, we felt, a true representation of the real Spanish ethos).

My reply to the inquiry of the gentleman from the radio was the inevitable cocky T.V. type statement:"Well, we at least have adopted the real Spanish music.” My interrogator, undeterred by my rather less-than-suave, know-it-all response, was quick on the rebound. ”Then why don’t you interpret the real music of the Netherlands?”

As the ground gave way under my feet and I was swept away on the maelstrom of anguish, the tidal wave of the hit-parade battering the reefs with a relentless force, I saw a tri-coloured lion roar something incomprehensible owing to the deafening effect of the howling wind. That evening, I left Spain with my tail between my legs, swearing to myself in the aftermost of the tempest, that they’d never have me back, and rightly so.

…to the Low-Countries

The next few months in Brussels was spent perusing history books, music annuals, running around Europe, Flanders and even America, in a desperate and furious attempt to discover

a) what the 'Netherlands' or 'Low Countries', meant, and

b) what on earth their music consisted of.

I came to the conclusion that the area in question was the one stretching from Amsterdam to Arras, and from Dixmude to Cologne, the rich melting pot of dissatisfied quarrellers eternally being pushed around by relentless invaders jealous of their possessions, from Julius C. to Adolf H. via Louis Q. and the Spanish (about whom more later: There is a French proverb which says that revenge is a dish which is eaten when it has gone cold). The official boundaries of the Netherlands were never more then vague line drawn in haste to pacify the territorial desires of greedy generals at various points in time.

As for the music, the Austrians have got Mozart and a kind of rock for us to envy; the French sport Ravel and Debussy; the East rest on the laurels of Bartok and folk/popular music, the Americans are the kings of jazz; what on earth has anybody got to envy us for?

Take yourself back four hundred years, and imagine yourself in a Europe dominated for better or for worse by a Charles Quint suffering from intolerable haemorrhoids, entrusting to his son, the evil Philip a reign of religious terror over a little world of artisans all contributing diligently to the opulence of the time; and a quantity of Flemish musicians, whose worth even the gruelling Spanish, while crushing the very life and breath out of Flanders in every possible way, did not pass over. Philippe himself, in a postscript to a particularly denigrating letter about the libertine spirit of the unhappy Flemish under his jurisdiction, ordered eight young Flemish singers to be sent urgently to one of his chapels beyond the Pyrenees. Thus Flemish musicians wandered all over Europe, leading the most prestigious chapels, teaching their new theories, arousing the emotion of crowds and courts. Among these the names of Ockeghem, Obrecht, Dufay, Willaert, Josquin, Lassus and Monte stand out, but they were not the only ones. You may well say that throughout the course of history culture has been moving from east to west, from south to north, so it is quite natural that the Spanish brought music to the Netherlands. O.K., so they brought us the guitar, which they got from the Arabs anyway; but it was due to the names mentioned above that the science of music was developed. Don't forget that this was the era of the philosopher's stone, the squaring of the circle, and other problems of similar complexity. Our master musicians were not indifferent to this way of thinking; it is present in the infernal musical riddles they concocted such as 30 voice polyphonies, where the individual beauty of each voice counted rather than the effect of the whole.

And so, dear reader, here I found myself, a modest musician of the Low Countries, having discovered my roots and my masters, all I needed to do then was to find a theme.

Egmont

"Egmont, blinded by the love of the fatherland, died on the scaffold to uphold the rights of the unhappy Flemish oppressed by their king." VOLTAIRE

To pertain to be familiar with this period of Flemish history and to ignore the picturesque count of Gaasbeek is, by all accounts, impossible. An admirable martyr, some say; good slapstick, guffaw others. Whichever opinion one adopts, Egmont was undoubtedly and excellent career officer who had to misfortune to fall between the two giants of the era; the shady Philip II, incapable of governing the immense empire bequeathed to him by his infirm father, and the over-cunning William of Orange, leader of the Gueux (Flemish rebels against the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands) and defender of the Low Countries; Egmont didn't make it to the top. As you may, however, have come to the conclusion yourself, heroes are often heroes by chance and usually against their will. Our Egmont died a magnificent hero's death on the 9^th June of a scaffold draped with black velvet in the Grand Place of Brussels, bravely, and with dignity. Immortalised by Goethe, Schiller, Voltaire, Egmont has his statue in the Sablon parc of Brussels. Beethoven wrote his famous 'Egmont ouverture'.

The decapitation of Egmont at the hands of the infamous Duke of Alba happened on June 9 1568, on the Grand Place of Brussels. It was part of a cultural genocide ordered by Philippe II, which took the live of 15,000 bourgeois, intellectuals, liberals, and other small craftsmen, all suspected of being or willing to become protestants.

The CD

1 Ud

The ud is an instrument of Arab origin (still played in Egypt for example) resembling the lute of which it is the ancestor, with a pear-like shaped body and a short neck without frets, strung with five double strings, tuned to the taste of the player, and played with the aid of a feather (now a plectrum). Ud players arrived in Spain in the coffers of caliph Muslim invaders. They (and the gypsies from Rajasthan) brought also their melismas to whom present day groovy tourists to Spain may be grateful, because their music became integrated with the music from the north. The flamenco was born.

2 Piume al vento

In opposition to the annotated music of the great masters, we do not have any certitude about the folk music. Trad' musicologists know that a tune recorded in a village, might have changed over the following years under various influences. What could happen then over a few hundred years? Village music, however, present sometimes a modal character of an antique origin. I took the present melody from an Alfa recording and found in it a curious Hungarian flavour. Hence my idea of this arrangement. The words in Italian are from Roberto Savigni.

3 Nelle

The mischievous and cheerful character of Thijl Uijlenspiegel makes me think of the less fortunate one of Egmont and heroes in general. And who looks more like Thijl than Dick Annegarn?

4, 9, 15 Sabina

Clemens Non Papa was a mysterious priest born in Ypres in 1510 and deceased in Dixmude around 1556, a contemporary of Egmont even though history never clarified their relationship; he suffered a violent death about which I am a bit vague; his quality as a composer is, on the contrary, far from being indeterminate and he is definitely my favourite. He combines an atmospherically romantic verve with an innovation into the more bizarre aspects of music. He made himself known through popular songs of the time, and it is Mary of Hungary, the sister of Charles Q and Governor of the Low Countries at the time (around 1540) wishing to raise the tone of the current earthy popular music, engaged the brother Clemens to improve the situation with, why not, a few psalms.

In the word Sabina, I have tried to represent the music of Clemens. It is a motet, which composers of the time used to disguise profane or disrespectful words by the bias of the chromatism in a composition for a mass, which was always the most lucrative from of income and produced the largest audiences. 'Rachel non plorans' : a motet being a simultaneous execution of words, I have exaggerated this effect by rewriting the words in eight different languages, but still preserving, I hope, the initial effect of the word cascade. I feel very strongly about the aseptic way in which the music of this period is played today. I have entrusted to Pascale Son and Dirk Bogart, more accustomed to singing tripe-rock in smoky cabarets, for whom it was their first contact with this kind of music. After the first two parts of the motet, the principal themes are developed on a guitar which I pompously call polyphonic : Thirteen strings, of which the first three are doubled , with scalloped board.

5 La Ballade du Zwin (Ballad of the Zwin)

It was recorded in 1976 due to the special inspiration of musicians I met working on the film Alexandre Halot and Jean Van Raemdonck were making about Flanders. The improvised solo of Pavel Haza strangely shows the Hungarian point of view.

6 Geuzenlied (Songs of the Gueux)

The words of this popular song were written shortly after the death of Egmont in a Flemish patois from Pajottenland in the vicinity of Gaasbeek.

From the five verses available I have written a unique melody as near as I could to popular songs o f the time, to which I added the refrain "Egmont is dood." As for the harmonisation, it goes from 1568 (1^st verse) to 1750 (2^nd verse) to finish now (5^th verse) as the first approaches of the FF Boom sound out on the electric guitar. Dick Annegarn's "vliegende hollander" draws to mind the musical pilgrims of polyphonic Europe as he rolls out the suave words and truculent language of this tragic chant.

7 Un instant sous la hache (An instant under the axe)

Could this be the moment when Egmont laid his head on the pillow and the axe touched his neck?

8 Granvelle

Finding that I had rather overdone the pitiful side of Egmont (hero in spite of himself) here, Dick Annegarn has brought out the keen rebellious warrior, ready to sock it to the pretentious Cardinal Grandvelle who collaborated with the Spanish. Throughout the music, the reader, already familiar with the Flemish counterpoint, will recognise "L'homme armé" on the oboe, a popular theme with composers from the Middle Age to Baroque. What European bathroom has not heard this old favourite hummed at least once in those moments of euphoria.

10 Cancion francesa

This motet by Clemens was arranged by his contemporary, the Spanish organist Antonio de Cabeçon (1510-1566), then transcribed in 1578 by his son Hernando. The legend says, ''…, Antonio de Cabeçon, musico de la Camerata y Capilla del Rey Don Philippe nuestro Señor." Hmmmm, him again! When we recorded the first version of this album (1976), I intended to adapt it for the polyphonic guitar, however I could not play it properly then. My path to a new and better adapted instrument brought me to Emmett Chapman whom I met in California in the 1980's, and who introduced me to a new technique and instrument that he had invented -- the tap-guitar. It was not until 2001 before I could play the piece.

11 Tous les oiseaux (All the birds)

Still in 1976, Dick brought in the very first known poem written in Dutch: ' hebba olla vogala nestas hagunan hinase hic anda thu ' (All the birds have made their nests, and also you…) He wanted us to compose music for it. The idea of re-using one of the voices of the motet 'Cancion Francesa' (see above) came to me. So, Clemens reused the folksongs in his motets, then Cabezon reused them for organ, then we reused them for tap-guitar and eventually again in a folksong. How dizzying! This piece was also composed in 1976, but it was banned from performance by Dick's publisher. In 2001, we decided that it would be sung by a classical tenor. A successful career is in store for the tenor Patrick Van den Eede, a Flemish expatriate living in Marseilles. "Allez les oiseaux!"

12 Sana me die

The same process of recycling themes is applied as in the 'Cancion francesa' (see above). However, it is the renowned tap-guitar player from Stuttgart, Wolfgang Daiss, who performs this piece.

13 Menteur du pont (Liar from the bridge)

Aldo de Vernati, the Italian baritone who settled in the North interprets this piece with the humour called for by the text. While the melody is a variation on one of the themes of Sana me die, the text is inspired by a song of the Low-Countries, 'De leugenaar' (the liar).

15 Ein kleiner Mann

At its origin, the village of Wortel takes up this theme and its modal harmonisation (hypoaolian) like a march. Pascale Son interprets it in a strange language consisting of French superimposed on German on two different soundscapes, with remarkable results due to her own special magic and that of Alain-Pierre. The German version was written by the German poet Jürgen Hellweg.

16 The ff boom

We have tramped over the long franco-flemish hills, my friend, passed the night in the corner of a field in the shelter of a hawthorn hedge, shivering, when all of a sudden the first light of dawn appears bathed in a chorus of mystery… tempests, storms, flashed of lightning and clouds in all their forms give way to the rhythm of slow breathing which dies away at the return of nightfall.