Nuper Rosarum Flores or Recently Flowers of Roses/The Rose Blossoms Recently, is an isorhythm

Isorhythm

Isorhythm is a musical technique that arranges a fixed pattern of pitches with a repeating rhythmic pattern.-Detail:...

ic motet

Motet

In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...

 composed by Guillaume Dufay

Guillaume Dufay

Guillaume Dufay was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance. As the central figure in the Burgundian School, he was the most famous and influential composer in Europe in the mid-15th century.-Early life:From the evidence of his will, he was probably born in Beersel, in the vicinity of...

 for the 25 March 1436 consecration of the Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 cathedral, on the occasion of the completion of the dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi was one of the foremost architects and engineers of the Italian Renaissance. He is perhaps most famous for inventing linear perspective and designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, but his accomplishments also included bronze artwork, architecture , mathematics,...

—although technically, the dome itself was not finished until five months later, at which time a separate consecration was celebrated by Benozzo Federighi, the bishop of Fiesole

Fiesole

Fiesole is a town and comune of the province of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a famously scenic height above Florence, 8 km NE of that city...

, substituting for the newly appointed archbishop of Florence, Cardinal Vitelleschi (Wright 1994, 396 n2). The motet is striking for its synthesis of the older isorhythmic style and the new contrapuntal style that Dufay himself would explore further in the coming decades, as would successors such as Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem was the most famous composer of the Franco-Flemish School in the last half of the 15th century, and is often considered the most...

 and Josquin des Prez

Josquin Des Prez

Josquin des Prez [Josquin Lebloitte dit Desprez] , often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance...

. The title of the piece stems from the name of the cathedral itself: Santa Maria del Fiore, or St. Mary of the Flower. The opening lines of Dufay's text refers to Pope Eugene IV

Pope Eugene IV

Pope Eugene IV , born Gabriele Condulmer, was pope from March 3, 1431, to his death.-Biography:He was born in Venice to a rich merchant family, a Correr on his mother's side. Condulmer entered the Order of Saint Augustine at the monastery of St. George in his native city...

's gift to the cathedral, and to the city of Florence, of a golden rose to decorate the high altar—a gift made the week before the dedication (Wright 1994, 399).

Controversy

The musicologist Charles Warren claimed that the proportional structure of the motet mimicked the proportions of the building itself (Warren 1973). David Fallows (1987, 283 n46), Charles Turner (1991, 99–102), and others subsequently cast doubt on Warren's figures, and Craig Wright later published a compelling refutation, demonstrating that Warren's analysis "does violence to the architecture of the church", and that the "unique ratio 6:4:2:3, which governs Dufay's motet, is … in no way immanent, or even superficially apparent, in the design of the cathedral of Florence". He concludes that, instead, Dufay's inspiration was the biblical passage, Kings 6:1–20, which gives the dimensions of the Temple of Solomon as 60 x 40 x 20 x 30 cubits (Wright 1994, 401, 404–407). Marvin Trachtenberg has recently attempted to rehabilitate Warren's theory, even while conceding that "It is difficult to find fault with Wright's critique, whether regarding his refinement of Warren's musical reading, his own presentation of the textual, Solomonic-Marian syndrome, or his refutation of Warren's architectural analysis" (Trachtenberg 2001, 742).

Text and translation of the motet

Latin	English
Nuper rosarum flores Ex dono pontificis Hieme licet horrida Tibi, virgo coelica, Pie et sancte deditum Grandis templum machinae Condecorarunt perpetim. Hodie vicarius Jesu Christe et Petri Successor Eugenius Hoc idem amplissimum Sacris templum manibus Sanctisque liquoribus Consecrare dignatus est. Igitur, alma parens Nati tui et filia Virgo decus virginum, Tuus te Florentiae Devotus erat populus, Ut qui mente et corpore Mundo quicquam exorarit. Oratione tua Cruciatus et meritis Tui secundum carnem Nati Domini sui Grata beneficia Veniamque reatum Accipere meraeatur. Amen.	Recently garlands of roses were given by the Pope— despite a terrible winter— to you, heavenly Virgin, dedicated in a pious and holy fashion, a temple of great ingenuity, to be a perpetual adornment. Today the vicar of Jesus Christ and of Peter a successor, Eugenius, has to this vast temple with his hands and holy liquors deigned to consecrate. Therefore, sweet parent of your son, and daughter, virgin of virgins, to you the Florentines devoted as a people, together in mind and body on earth, pray to you. By your prayer to the crucified and worthy, your second flesh, their Lord, grant us benefit and receive pardons for their transgression. Amen.
Cantus firmus: Terribilis est locus iste	Cantus firmus: Magnificent is this place

Structure

The motet has an isorhythm

Isorhythm

Isorhythm is a musical technique that arranges a fixed pattern of pitches with a repeating rhythmic pattern.-Detail:...

ic diminution structure. The two tenors, which define the overall structural plan of the piece, are both based on a Gregorian

Gregorian chant

Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...

 cantus firmus

Cantus firmus

In music, a cantus firmus is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition.The plural of this Latin term is , though the corrupt form canti firmi is also attested...

 melody taken from the introit

Introit

The Introit is part of the opening of the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations. In its most complete version, it consists of an antiphon, psalm verse and Gloria Patri that is spoken or sung at the beginning of the celebration...

 for the consecration of churches, Terribilis est locus iste ('Awesome is this place', Genesis 28:17), a fifth apart and with different, interlocking rhythmic configurations. This double-tenor motet construction, which Dufay had used previously only in Ecclesie militantis in (probably) 1431, became a regular feature of his later motets, though Nuper rosarum flores is the sole example in which the tenor secundus draws on the same plainchant as the tenor primus (Fallows 1987, 46 & 117). Although the standard modern version of this chant has seventeen notes for the first four words, late medieval chant books such as the ones used in Florence in the early 15th century, have only fourteen notes. These fourteen notes are used as a canonic color

Isorhythm

Isorhythm is a musical technique that arranges a fixed pattern of pitches with a repeating rhythmic pattern.-Detail:...

in the two tenors, with an interlocking talea pattern (the rhythm patterns of the two tenor parts are different from each other) that totals 28 longa notes, of which the first 14 are rests. This interlocked pair of tenor parts is stated four times, following a diminution scheme in which the identical notation is interpreted under four different mensuration signs

Mensural notation

Mensural notation is the musical notation system which was used in European music from the later part of the 13th century until about 1600."Mensural" refers to the ability of this system to notate complex rhythms with great exactness and flexibility...

, first in tempus perfectum in integer valor (each longa transcribed as a 6/2 bar), then in tempus imperfectum in integer valor (transcribed as 4/2), then in tempus imperfectum diminutum (4/4), and finally in tempus perfectum diminutum (6/4), resulting in total length proportions of 6:4:2:3 (Wright 1994, 397–98). This is unusual for isorhythmic motets, in which the sections normally become progressively shorter, but this proportional structure achieves its own equally effective balance. Moreover, the final isorhythmic section provides the usual drive to an accelerated finish by giving the upper voices the shortest note values in the piece (Fallows 1987, 117–18). Each of the motet's four proportional sections has two sub-sections, suggesting even an eight-part structure. The first of these sub-sections includes just the two upper voices (bicinium), while the second not only is sung by all voices but also features the entry of the two instrumental tenor parts.

This large-scale plan contradicts the poetic structure of the text in the upper voices, which is divided into four strophes of seven lines, each consisting of either seven or eight syllables. The first two strophes describe the event being celebrated: "recently roses bloomed in the bitter cold of winter, adorning the Church; today it will be consecrated by Pope Eugenius with holy hands and oils". The last two strophes run together and are a prayer to the Virgin on behalf of the people of Florence (Carpenter 1973, 5–6).

External links

• Nuper rosarum flores, transcribed by Moriwaki Michio, free downloadable score in PostScript and MusicTEX, at M. A. B. Soloists website (Accessed 27 August 2010).
• Nuper rosarum flures, transcribed by Moriwaki Michio, PDF version (Accessed 27 August 2010).