Veni Sancte Spiritus and Missa Caput: Two Giant Leaps

Album: Dunstable: Sweet Harmony Masses and Motets
Track: "Veni Sancte Spiritus - Veni Creator" (Track #11)
Composer: John Dunstaple
Instruments: four vocalists
Musical Form: isorhythmic motet
Year: ~1431

Although early Renaissance composers were in many respects less experimental than their late medieval predecessors, there were still a great many musical forms and techniques that were being developed in the early 15th century. In an earlier post, I discussed John Dunstaple's pioneering the use of triadic harmony in his compositions; this technique can be heard again in "Veni Sancte Spiritus," a popular motet composed around ~1430. The piece is progressive in many respects, including its use of a musical mode that corresponds to the modern major scale and also its relatively wide range of pitches (called the "tessitura").

The wide pitch range of "Veni Sancte Spiritus" is most noticable in the tenor, which at times functions like a bass line. The tenor fails to truly carry the rest of the piece as a modern bass line would, but each time it strikes a low note, the piece is given new life. It does not move towards a dynamical climax as we might expect from a symphony, but is rather almost cyclic, as the isorhythmic tenor paces the higher voices. With each repetition, we are given a new opportunity for spiritual transcendence, but it is not just handed to us... we must find it for ourselves.

Although we hear hints of it here, a true bass part would not appear in a Renaissance composition until "Missa Caput," a cyclic mass composed by an anonymous English composer sometime around 1440. I haven't been able to locate any easily accessible recordings of this mass, but many other mid-15th century masses were modeled after it and I will review some of these in later entries. English composers were particularly influential on their continental counterparts during this period, in part because of the English occupation of France during the Hundred Years War.

Related Links: Allmusic