During my doctoral studies, I discovered an intriguing hypothesis by musicologist Edward E. Lowinsky. In his book Secret Chromatic Art in the Netherlands Motet, he proposed that some Franco-Flemish composers of the Renaissance hid passages of intense chromaticization behind part-writing errors. Such choices allowed them to satisfy the conservative preferences of their employers without sacrificing their own creative interests.  Singers of the period would have regularly “fixed” such errors intuitively and moved on without a second thought.  However, sometimes there were options.

In the case of Waelrant’s Afflictus sum, the relevant passage arises on the text, “I have roared from the groaning of my heart.”  Waelrant’s partbooks present a melodic tritone—something every singer would fix.  One option is to flatten the E in m. 18 and set up a standard path to what modern ears would hear as the parallel major (even though tonality had not been codified in Waelrant’s time).  The other possibility, as championed by Lowinsky, is to raise the Bb at the beginning of measure 19.  This unlocks an unexpected shortcut that establishes the relative major far more abruptly—coincidentally on the word, “groaning”. 

Which did Waelrant intend?  No one will ever know for sure, but after conducting Lowinsky’s version, I don’t think I’ll ever teach it any other way. —JDB

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