The motet Mulier quae erat by Manuel Cardoso

Manuel Cardoso was born in the small Portuguese village of Fronteira (near the Spanish border), possibly in the second semester of the year of 1566, since he was baptized on 11 December of that year in the Parish Church of this Alentejo village. The biographical details of Manuel Cardoso were passed to us by the chronicler of the Carmelite Order Fr. Manuel de Sá, who in 1724, published the Memorias históricas… da Ordem de Nossa Senhora do Carmo, dedicating three pages to the composer from Alentejo.

According to Fr. Manuel de Sá, Manuel Cardoso was sent to Évora with the aim of studying “grammer and the art of music”, very possibly at the Choirboys School next to the Cathedral. Cardoso took the habit in the Carmelite convent of Lisbon on 1 July 1588 and professed in that convent on 5 July of the following year, at 23 years old. The chronicler of the Carmelite Order praised the quality of Cardoso during the years he lived at the Convent of Carmo. Besides considering him as “one of the great, and distinguished composers that existed not only in this Kingdom, but in all Europe”, also enumerated his virtues, stating that “in eating he was very sparce, in modesty singular, in guarding the silence most vigilant, in observing the votes most observant, in poverty so punctual that he never had any belongings”.

Regarding the music of Cardoso, Peter Philips (director of the early music group The Tallis Scholars) stated in the notes of the CD dedicated to this composer, that, among other Portuguese composers, “it was Cardoso who combined the old and new with the best success, producing his own style with a high” emotional character. Manuel Cardoso was one of the Portuguese composers who saw more of his music being printed. In all, five volumes of vocal polyphony were printed at the Craesbeeck workshop through a period of forty years. These volumes include a book of Magnificat (1613), three books of masses (one in 1625, and two in 1636) and a collection of motets, lamentations and other genres (1648).

The motet Mulier quae erat was published in a collection of music which also included, besides other motets, a miscellany of other genres (as masses, lamentations, responsories, hymns, lessons and other small-scale works). The Livro de varios motetes… e outras cousas was printed in Lisbon, in the year of 1648, by Lourenço Craesbeeck. This work belongs to a group of motets for five voices with the inclusion of a second Altus to the usual voice quartet (SATB). Although it doesn’t bear a direct indication regarding its Liturgical use, this motet is present in the group of works destined to the last Sundays of Lent. Other composers, such as Estêvão de Brito or Estêvão Lopes Morago, also wrote motets for the Sundays of Advent and Lent. As in the motets for the Sundays, this also uses a text passage from the Gospels (in this case, Luke 7:37-38).

The motet’s text is divided into five segments:

1. Mulier quae erat in civitate peccatrix

2. Stans retro secus pedes Domini

3. Lacrymis cepit rigari pedes ejus

4. Et capillis capitis sui tergebat

5. Et osculabatur pedes ejus ut unguento ungebat.

The beginning is somewhat ambiguous in terms of establishing a “tonality”. The voices begin the point of imitation based in the musical motive associated to the text “mulier” and “quae erat”, with successive entries of the voices (Tenor, Superius, Altus 1, Altus 2, and Bassus respectively) at a distance of an octave or a fifth. A second motive appears associated to the text “in civitate peccatrix”. This is the longer segment of the motet, together with the fifth, not only because it has the longer text, but also due to being the exterior segments of the work.

The music of Cardoso is also known as having very strong affective features. The motets, due to their features, are genres open to moments of word-painting, an expression inherited from the analysis of madrigals and chansons, which perfectly fits in Mulier quae erat. Certain text passages or words, as “peccatrix” or “lacrymis”, are emphasised through a control of dissonance common in counterpoint (suspension and passage notes) and something characteristic in the music of Cardoso, referred in analytic terms as the chromatic inflexion. In the last point of imitation, the motive associated to the text “et osculabatur pedes ejus” is developed by Cardoso, as in other works, through its inversion.

The video that accompanies this text was recorded by Grupo Vocal Olisipo on 6 November, in the concert titled Vocem Flentium – A Voz do Pranto. This concert, that took place at the church of the Monastery of Santos-o-Novo, was part of the 28º edition of the season Música em S. Roque, organized by the Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Lisbon. The music of Manuel Cardoso has been a central element in the programmes of the Grupo Vocal Olisipo, counting more than thirty years of activity, which dedicated a CD to this composer (shared with responsories for Good Friday by Francisco Martins), more specifically to the Missa pro Defunctis for four voices, that, as the motet Mulier quae erat, is also to be found in the Libro de varios motetes.