Franz Kaern-Biederstedt: 12 Madrigals after Sonnets by Louise Labé (1555) for mixed choir a capella

Franz Kaern-Biederstedt: 12 Madrigals after Sonnets by Louise Labé (1555) for 3-8-part choir a capella

(Digital sound files from cantamus.app)

In 2022 I got a commission by a chamber choir in Leipzig to write some pieces for the concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the choir. In this concert’s program everything was about love, mainly around the “Liebeslieder-Walzer” by Johannes Brahms, and my piece should also deal with the topic. When searching for interesting texts I could set to music I came across the Sonnets by Renaissance poet and author Louise Labé (app. 1524-1566) in a new German translation by Monika Fahrenbach-Wachendorff which I found quite inspiring. For the occasion of the concert, I composed three of her Sonnets of which two were then premiered by the choir (see the life recordings here:    • Franz Kaern-Biederstedt: 2 (of 3) Madrigal...  ).
Since then, I have been thinking about setting all 24 of Louise Labé’s Sonnets to music, and during the course of the last 3 years I came up with now 12 Madrigals in which I tried to pay tribute to the genre and tradition of secular Renaissance madrigals and chansons through my personal looking glass, sometimes experimenting with different techniques and approaches to be found in certain model pieces by composers like Josquin, Monteverdi, Gesualdo, Marenzio and others, sometimes in a free and personal way. Since I’ve already reached the half of the project (which might still last 1-2 years until finish), I thought it would be nice to make a video of the now existing Madrigals.
The first Madrigal, for example, follows the example of Josquin’s 5-part Chansons with two voices in a strict canon and the other voices with free imitative structures to the canon between bass and alto. Madrigal No. 3 is a composition for double-choir, No. 5 is my attempt to compose a very dense double-canon in different proportions (i.e. four voices starting their two melodies at the same time but in different tempos, so that they separate from each other) like how it is to be found in the most impressive “Missa Prolationum” by Johannes Ockeghem.
Madrigal No. 7 interprets the chromatic Lamento-bass model anew with some hopefully interesting harmonic twists. No. 8 is generally inspired by many Madrigals like the ones of Monteverdi where you can find constant changes of moods and motives, resulting from the coloring of the contrasting images of the poem. In No. 13 each voice sings in a different mode on the common root-note B, which leads to interesting harmonies within the contrapuntal layering of the voices. No. 17 follows the genre of the 3-part Villanella Napolitana with a repeated more homophonic first part and a polyphonic second part. Here I used the artificial “Lydian Dominant” mode with an augmented forth and a minor seventh. In Madrigal No. 18 I imitated some very rhythmically intricate and dance-like madrigals, chansons or canzonas, applying many irregular changings of meter.
No. 21 also takes a modern mode as basis for the composition, the so-called octatonic scale or second mode by Messiaen, built on a regular succession of half-tone and whole-tone steps.
The three Madrigals to Sonnets 4, 9 and 11 don’t follow any specific model or try to imitate a common period technique but can be considered as new approaches to the genre in a more personal manner, nevertheless breathing the spirit of Renaissance songs.
Sonnet I: Odysseus hätte nicht, noch irgendwer [0:10]
Sonnet III: Fruchtloses Hoffen, endloses Begehren [4:05]
Sonnet IV: Seit Amor grausam mir, mit einem Schlag [9:16]
Sonnet V: Strahlende Venus, die am Himmel zieht [11:28]
Sonnet VII: Hinsterben sieht man alle Kreatur [16:12]
Sonnet VIII: Ich brenne und ertrinke, lebe und bin tot [20:46]
Sonnet IX: Bin ich ersehntem Schlummer hingegeben [24:55]
Sonnet XI: O Blicke, o ihr Augen, sanft und schön [30:20]
Sonnet XIII: Wär ich an diese schöne Brust entführt [34:45]
Sonnet XVII: Ich flieh die Stadt, die Tempel, alle Plätze [38:20]
Sonnet XVIII: Küss mich noch einmal [40:15]
Sonnet XXI: Sagt, welchen Wuchs soll man am meisten schätzen? [42:56]