Lemoine Mantovani - O Salutaris Hostia - 7 Violoncelles

Summary of This Score

With O salutaris hostia, Bruno Mantovani takes on a Christian hymn attributed to Saint Thomas Aquinas, a major source of inspiration for many Renaissance composers (Josquin des Prés, Thomas Tallis) and especially for Pierre de la Rue. The starting point of the approach is Pierre de la Rue's "O salutaris hostia," a short four-voice piece, which Mantovani chooses to place at the heart of his own language. Rare in his catalog, he applies principles of automatic writing, not to erase the model, but rather to reveal its structural lines over an extended duration.

The composer begins by stretching the harmonic framework of the original work to about 7 minutes and 30 seconds, multiplying its length by five. He then establishes a list of about twenty playing techniques, which he applies to the existing harmony by organizing gradual transitions from one configuration to another. This method creates a continuous transformation of the texture: the material seems to metamorphose without interruption while maintaining a stable harmonic thread. The result is a paradoxical listening experience, both dense and steady, where the ear perceives constant movement alongside a sense of stretched time, conducive to contemplation. Mantovani himself mentions his taste for models from the past (Gesualdo, Schubert, Schumann) while emphasizing that, for this work, the presence of the model is exceptionally strong despite the applied treatments.

Technical specifications

Musical Genre

Religious, Sacred

Composer

Bruno Mantovani