O quam dulcis

Jean Richafort (c.1480 – after 1547)

Attaingnant, Motettorum Liber II [Paris, 1534] (RISM 1534/4) 'Plurimorum martyrum'

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RESOLUT Editions RSU–004 © 2017 • Andrew Fysh, Canberra AU • CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
 2 O quam dulcis Richafort

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 Richafort O quam dulcis 3

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 4 O quam dulcis Richafort

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 Richafort O quam dulcis 5

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 6 O quam dulcis Richafort

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Richafort O quam dulcis 7

O quam dulcis et quam beáta, O how sweet and how blessed,

[Hierónyme Ferrariénsis, [Jerome of Ferrara
Domínice, Silvéster], Dominic, Sylvester],
fratérnitas, is brotherly love,
O quam gratis et colénda O how pleasing and to be worshipped
christiánitas, is Christianity,
O urbs [Floréntia], O city [of Florence],
quam felix es méritis how happy you are to be renowned
tantórum mártyrum ínclyta, from the merits of such great martyrs,
qui per multa pœnárum génera who, through many types of punishment,
hódie regna meruérunt cœléstia. today have attained the heavenly kingdom.

Ecce quam bonum et iocúndum Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is:
habitáre fratres in unum. brethren to dwell together in unity.
Allelúia. Alleluia.

[Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) and Psalm 132:1 (V ulgate)]

Though he was evidently revered in his day, relatively little is known of Jean Richafort's life. His appointments at Sint-Romboutskathedraal in
Mechelen (1507–09) and Sint-Gilliskerk in Bruges (1542–47) as maître de chapelle are the only periods of his life to be dated with certainty. Between
these appointments he is known to have served in the Royal Chapel in Paris around the time of King Francis I's meeting with Pope Leo X in Bologna in
1515.
The heading "Plurimorum martyrum" ("Many martyrs") in Attaingnant's publication of this motet implies its intended use at any liturgical feast of
many martyrs — to which end Attaingnant simply prints "[N]" in place of the italicised names in the square brackets above, inviting the performer to,
as it were, "insert names of martyrs and the city of their death here". On what basis, then, are these particular names included, and did Richafort
have these in mind when he composed the work?
Girolamo Savonarola was born into nobility in Ferrara and entered the Dominican order in Bologna. His preachings of Christian morality found favour
in Florence, where he became the guiding spirit of a new republic, styled as a "Christian commonwealth", after the fall of the Medici rule in the late
15th century. However, his rigour and his claim of prophecy led to his being charged with heresy and his eventual excommunication from the Catholic
church. His "bonfire of the vanities" in 1497 led to a sharp decline in his popularity, culminating in riots in Florence and the eventual restoration of the
Medicis to power. Having been found guilty of religious error, sedition, and falsely uttering prophecies, Savonarola was hanged and burned in
Florence's Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498 alongside his two chief disciples, Fra Domenico da Pescia and Fra Silvestro Maruffi.
The Latinised names of these three martyrs and their city fit neatly into Richafort's music — but this is more than mere coincidence. The opening verse
of Psalm 132 with which Richafort concludes his motet was a motto of Savonarola and his followers; moreover, the Superius and Tenor parts quote
from the setting of those words in a lauda by Luca Bettini (1489–1527), a Dominican and a devotee of Savonarola. Richafort sets Bettini's duple-time
melody in a triple-time octave canon between those two parts.
Savonarola's teachings provided inspiration not only to other notable reformers of the Roman Catholic church, including St Philip Neri and John
Henry Newman, but also — perhaps ironically — to Martin Luther and his Protestant Reformation only two decades after Savonarola's death. Further
irony is to be found in the very fact that Richafort and so many of his contemporaries set Savonarolan texts and melodies in the highly polyphonic
Franco-Flemish compositional style of the first half of the sixteenth century: among Savonarola's puritanical views was a strong dislike of High
Renaissance polyphony!
References:
Byram Wigfield, B., Refuge from the Flames (CD booklet notes), Harmonia Mundi HMW906103, 2015
Macey, P.P., Bonfire Songs: Savonarola's Musical Legacy, Oxford University Press, 1998
McGeown, M., Savonarola: "Prophetic" Preacher and Moral Reformer, http://www.cprf.co.uk/articles/savonarola.htm#.We7KFtt7F24 (accessed 21 October
2017)

Editorial Notes:
Consistent with 16th-century convention, the ) mensuration sign and its modern-equivalent *
time signature signify a semibreve tactus. In the
duple-time sections, original note values have been retained; however, for ease of reading in a modern-notation setting, note values in the tripla section
have been halved: the *3 signature thus indicates three beats in the previous time of two. Bar lines are added only to aid reading and direction:
‘strong’ and ‘weak’ beats implied by their position should never take precedence over phrasing or word stress. Ligatures and coloration in the original
mensural notation are acknowledged herein with overarching square brackets and open brackets respectively. Editorial accidentals are indicated
above the note. Given the ambiguity of word underlay in 16th-century manuscripts, editorial adjustments have been made freely: addition or
reiteration of text not explicit in the source is indicated in italic.

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