Nesciens Mater

Chiltern Recorder Consort Series

Jean Mouton (c. 1459 – 30 October 1522) was a French composer of the Renaissance. He was famous both for his motets, which are among the most refined of the time, and for being the teacher of Adrian Wilaert, one of the founders of the Venetian School.

A setting of an antiphon for the Octave of the Nativity (January 1), Nesciens mater first appeared in the Medici Codex of 1518, an illuminated manuscript collection of motets. This collection was reputedly copied (by hand) under Mouton’s direction as a wedding gift for Lorenzo de Medici and his young French bride. In the motet, the circumstances of Mary’s role in the birth of Jesus are highlighted by a smooth, flowing eight-voice polyphony which is produced by four voices (the tenor part based on a chant melody) imitating the others at four beats’ distance and a fifth higher. So strict is this quadruple canon, that only the four “leading” voices appear in the manuscript, the others being deduced from them. The result is an exquisite undulating tapestry of sonorous beauty.

Nesciens mater virgo virum peperit
bore sine dolore Salvatorem saeculorum
Ipsum regem angelorum.
sola virgo lactabat, ubere de caelo pleno.

Translation: 

Without knowing a man, the Virgin Mother
without pain, the eternal Savior,
Himself the King of Angels.
She alone suckled with heavenly plenty.

Alex Ayre was a British recorder teacher and performer who arranged over 500 pieces, of mainly English Renaissance and Baroque music, for recorder ensembles. 

Score: 9 pages. 8 parts @ 2 pages ea.