You may remember my diary entries from April 2021 about the Franco-Flemish school of Renaissance polyphony. This school of music flourished for two whole centuries, roughly from 1400 to 1600. It's an enormously deep world! Though I haven't been writing about it lately, I continue to enjoy it.
Antoine Busnois (1430 - 1492) is one of the most famous composers in the second generation of the Franco-Flemish school. He's almost up there with Johannes Ockeghem. And I just ran into a piece by him called In hydraulis.
I really like it! But why did he call it that? You don't hear many songs about hydraulics.
It turns out the lyrics are a description of Pythagorean music theory based on simple fractions and also a homage to his colleague Ockeghem: Busnois had recently joined him working at the court of Burgundy. The first two words just happen to mention a 'hydraulis', which is an ancient kind of water organ.
According to Wikipedia,
The hydraulis is the name of a Greek instrument created by Ctesibius of Alexandria. The hydraulis has a reservoir of air which is inserted into a cistern of water. The air is pushed into the reservoir with hand pumps, and exits the reservoir as pressurized air to blow through the pipes. The reservoir is open on the bottom, allowing water to maintain the pressure on the air as the air supply fluctuates from either the pumps pushing more air in, or the pipes letting air out.
But why in the world was Busnois writing a song about a hydraulis? Translated into English, the lyrics of In hydraulis start like this:
These lyrics are remarkably scholarly, and I'd like to know why. I had to look up some of these words, but it was worthwhile.
The 'epitritus' is a ratio of 4:3, which is called a 'fourth' in music. The 'hemiola' is a ratio of 3:2, which is a 'fifth'. The 'epogdous' is a ratio of 9:8, or a 'second', also called an interval of a 'tone' since it's approximately one step up the white keys on a piano. The 'duple' is obviously 2:1, or an octave. So Busnois is reviewing how some simple fractions give some of the most important intervals in music. And of course, we attribute this discovery to Pythagoras — though nobody really knows exactly what Pythagoras did.
The 'monochord' is a one-stringed instrument supposedly used by Pythagoras to study harmony. And there's a popular but pretty clearly false legend that Pythagoras noticed these ratios by hitting some hammers in a blacksmith's shop and comparing their weights! It just doesn't work like that with hammers.
The lyrics continue:
I don't know why he says farewell — to Ockeghem? Ockeghem hadn't died. 'Cephas' is another name for the apostle Peter, 'rock' of the church, so Busnois seems to be saying that Ockeghem played a similar role in the Burgundian musical tradition (which is true).
Here's a live version of In hydraulis by the group Blue Heron, with captions in Latin and English:
I know Blue Heron because they're recording Ockeghem's complete songs in honor of his 600th birthday. But the pungent leading-tones in this piece by Busnois — seventh tones, desperately eager to resolve to the tonic — remind me a bit more of Guillaume Dufa, from the first generation of the Franco-Flemish school, than the more smoothed-down harmonies of Ockeghem.
Busnois could also craft catchy melodies like Dufay. Indeed, he may have written L'homme arme, one of the most popular songs of the entire Renaissance!
The recording of In hydraulis at the start of this entry was made by another group who specializes in this era: Pomerium. It's better recorded and more peppy. If you like this kind of music, I urge you to check out everything by Pomerium. But this version of In hydraulis not live and it doesn't have lyrics!
© 2023 John Baez
baez@math.removethis.ucr.andthis.edu