Tag: Renaissance

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Recording

Amavi

Music for Viols and Voices by Michael East
Fieri Consort, Chelys Consort of Viols
71:14
BIS-2503 SACD

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This admirable collaboration between the voices of the Fieri Consort and the viols of the Chelys Consort brings us the complete five-part fantasias by Michael East for viols of 1610, interspersed with madrigals and verse anthems by the composer. East seems to be a composer doomed these days to be a filler on CDs of more familiar composers of the period, and it is about time a CD like this declared his considerable virtues. This seems doubly relevant, as East gave Latin names to his eight fantasias, indicating a progression from guilt through repentance to love, and clearly suggesting that he viewed them as an integrated sequence. One of the chief delights of this CD is to be able to evaluate this collection in its entirety at the same time enjoying the superlative choral music – who realised for instance that East’s settings of “When David Heard” and “O Clap your Hands” deserve a place beside those of his more illustrious contemporaries? The Fieri Consort produce a wonderfully pure tone that complements perfectly the sound of the viols, and both young ensembles are to be congratulated for their technical and musical excellence, but also for their imaginative programming. The CD concludes with a newly commissioned work by contemporary composer, Jill Jarman, a restlessly charming setting of a text by Sir Henry Wotton.

D. James Ross

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Sheet music

Aichinger: Lacrumae Divae Virginis et Joannis in Christum a cruce depositum (1604)

A-R Lacrimae divae virginis RRMBE211

Edited by Alexander J. Fisher
xviii, 5, 63pp.
Recent Researches in Music of the Baroque Era, 211
ISBN 978-1-8972-0549-7 $100

Throughout his life, Gregor Aichinger was associated with the “richest family in the world”, the Fuggers. Sponsored by them to travel and study in Italy, he repaid them with many publications (and doubtless other musical tributes), among them this set of eight a cappella motets. They set texts by Marcus Welser, a wealthy city official in Augsburg, where (among other duties) Aichinger played the organ (financed – of course – by the Fuggers) at the church of SS Ulrich und Afra. The building houses a large bronze “Crucifixion” by Hans Reichle (the first of five illustrations in the edition) which was completed in 1605 – the year after the publication of Aichinger’s music. Fisher’s “loose connection” between the three (though he acknowledges the striking thematic links) is surely an overdose of academic caution!

Although Aichinger studied in Venice with Gabrieli, there is little evidence of that in these motets. That is why, in addition to the Baroque tag, I have added a Renaissance tag, too – this music inhabits the grey world of musical stylistic change around 1600. The first seven short pieces are scored for five voices (SMATB), while the last adds a second tenor. Mostly cast in 4/2 bars, Fisher opts to represent tripla (3) in 3/1 in the fourth motet but in 3/2 in the final piece. I cannot help thinking that this is because he (like others) is afraid to acknowledge that our modern barring system (and subsequently some of our understanding of the interrelationship between time signatures) just does not like joins, where half of a bar is notionally a triplet version of the other half. That said, this is a well laid-out volume with minimal editorial intervention. Having such a clean page allows one to appreciate one aspect of the music that Fisher draws attention to in his rich introduction: the way Aichinger respects the clarity of Welser’s texts.

Brian Clark

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Recording

The Complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book

CD cover Belder Complete Fitzwilliam Book Brilliant Classics 15 CDs

Pieter-Jan Belder
978:46 (15 CDs in a card box)
Brilliant Classics 95915

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If ever a project deserved the term magnum opus this complete recording of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book is it. This remarkable volume contains 297 pieces and was compiled towards the end of the Tudor period by Francis Tregian – in the manner of musical history, the books doesn’t bear the name of this intrepid individual, who is thoroughly deserving of our gratitude, but that of an aristocrat, the 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam, through whose hands it briefly passed in the 18th century. Pieter-Jan Belder, a van Asperen student, has form as regards complete recordings, having previously committed the complete keyboard sonatas of Scarlatti as well as the complete keyboard music of Rameau and Soler to disc, with further ambitious ‘integral recordings’ in his diary. A comprehensive programme note by Jon Baxendale proves an indispensable guide through the music and its composers. I had honestly anticipated that the quality of the music in such a huge volume might prove variable, and as the project began with Belder recording his favourite composers, only later opening out over the next eight years into a complete recording, I feared that I might be left with the dross at the end. Not only does there seem to be no dross, but astute programming means that the attention is held thoroughly throughout each of the individual CDs. The repertoire varies from really quite slight miniatures to works of symphonic proportions, which seem in some cases to cry out for orchestration. If occasionally sets of variations outlive their welcome, this is by no means the fault of the performer, but rather that of the composer or perhaps just the comprehensive taste of the time. Much more frequent than these moments of ennui are the regular delights of unexpected harmonic and melodic turns of phrase, passages of stunning beauty and quirky examples of the composers’ wit and invention. In all, 25 composers are represented, some of them household names from their contributions to other genres such as Byrd, Gibbons, Tallis, Tomkins, Parsons and Philips, others chiefly known for their keyboard music such as Bull and Farnaby. Belder’s approach has been commendably flexible, ‘cheating’ where he feels necessary regarding period fingering, and taking an imaginative intuitive approach to ornamentation. The playing throughout is impeccable, but also more importantly persuasive and engaging. Although a few pieces are played on virginals and muselar, and even a couple on chest organ, the instruments of choice are modern copies of Ruckers harpsichords, most notably an Adlam Burnett 1980 copy of the famous 1638 Ruckers in Edinburgh. This latter instrument has a deliciously full mellow tone, and probably is indeed the ideal vehicle for this music. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t express a couple of tiny reservations, namely that the way the project developed means that this Burnett/Ruckers harpsichord only appears in time for the later CDs and so we don’t get to hear the major works by Bull and Philips on this fine instrument. My second comment slightly negates this, by pointing out that most of the instruments, including the Burnett/Ruckers, are slightly later in period than the music, and when we hear the couple of tracks for which Belder uses virginals we are in a very different sound world. I admit it his hard to imagine some of the more ambitious works limited to the virginals, but on the other hand, some of the slighter works sound a little overblown on the Burnett/Ruckers harpsichord. Whatever my tiny reservations, I found this collection utterly enthralling, and Belder’s imaginative and consummately musical playing, as well as the consistently vivid recordings made in the sympathetic acoustics of a selection of Dutch churches, helped turn what could easily have been a bit of a chore into a complete delight.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Josquin: Motets & Mass movements

CD cover of hyperion Brabant Ensemble Josquin

The Brabant Ensemble, Stephen Rice
78:38
hyperion CDA68321

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The Brabant Ensemble specialises in bringing us music by neglected composers from the incredibly talented Franco-Flemish school which flourished between Josquin and Palestrina. We have it to thank for discs of revelatory music by the likes of Dominique Phinot, Thomas Crecquillon, Pierre de Manchicourt, Jean Maillard, Jacquet of Mantua and Jacob Clement. Its version of the latter’s sublime setting of Tristitia et anxietas alone justifies the choir’s existence, besides the numerous treasures on every other disc. They have also released a CD of neglected music by Palestrina, yet I found this strangely underwhelming, both as music and performance. Here they offer us music by the earlier bookend of this vibrant phenomenon.

The music on offer here consists of eight motets and two free-standing “mass movements”. The latter are easier to discuss and can be mentioned first: the Gloria de beata virgine and Sanctus de Passione. The Gloria is the more substantial of the two, a seemingly early, mediaeval-sounding work. The Sanctus is almost disconcertingly brief: even including an Elevation motet “Honor et benedictus” between the Sanctus itself and the Benedictus (scholarly opinion is that either the Elevation motet or the Benedictus would have been performed liturgically but not both, but the Ensemble rightly includes both for completeness and for the edification of listeners) the entire movement takes only 3’46. One can only agree with the eminent musicologist who described it as “unpretentious”.

The reasons behind the selection of material for this disc are not clear. Presumably, the record is released to celebrate Josquin’s quincentenary, though this is only stated explicitly in some of the advertising material. While all the items have the imprimatur of inclusion in the New Josquin Edition, Stephen Rice’s enthralling notes observe that doubts linger over the authenticity of most of them. Also, three of the items – Huc me sydereo, Stabat mater and O bone et dulcissime Jesu – possess or are suspected of possessing one or two extra parts which may or may not originally have been composed by Josquin. There are certainly other mass sections securely attributed to Josquin, and even I know of one other motet which has an extra voice supplied by another composer, so I wonder whether there exists a substantial repertory of Josquin’s sacred pieces which have subsequently had one or two extra parts added by other hands. My concern is that the selection here seems to lack some focus. Perhaps that focus is the function of these three sumptuous works for six voices, but if so, what is the rationale behind partnering them with these other more spartan works? There is certainly no individual number – like for instance Media vita in a programme of motets by Sheppard – which functions as that focus or that is simply a showstopper. For all their inclusion in NJE it appears that the three motets that follow – Domine ne in furore, Usquequo Domine and Homo quidam fecit – have all had doubts expressed about their authenticity. This leaves the two remaining motets which start the disc – Mittit ad virginem and Alma redemptoris/Ave regina – and even the former, the very first in the programme, survives with a plausible alternative attribution, leaving only the latter with a clean bill of musicological health. Although individual items have many features to relish – dissonances in Stabat mater, gorgeous textures in Huc me sydereo plus rich harmonies, sensuous sequences and more dissonances to relish in O bone et dulcissime Jesu to pick a few at random – there remains the fact that, to the layman at least, some of these effects might have been generated by the inclusion of notes not originally put in place by Josquin himself. These works rub shoulders with the three works for smaller vocal resources, mentioned above, about which doubts have been cast against Josquin’s authorship. The programme is topped by the two works, only one of which is incontrovertibly authentic, in his favoured four parts and tailed by two undistinguished but authentic mass sections, also in four. Perhaps this is the point: to provide successive contrasting tasters of the basic Josquin, the luxuriously expanded but only partly authentic Josquin, the questionable Josquin, and back to the authentic basic Josquin. These stops along the line are individually rewarding but the journey itself lacks coherence – all a bit halting, or, if one is shuffling the sequence, a bit arbitrary.

Performances that seemed meandering and undifferentiated at a first hearing blossomed in most (not entirely all) cases during subsequent hearings to come over as sensitive to individual texts and sonorities, though passages in the works of four parts sound almost exaggeratedly sparse beside those in six – reflecting Josquin’s technique in composing for the smaller number of voices – and I defy any choir to make the Sanctus sound more than “unpretentious”. Meanwhile, there is uncertainty as to how much real Josquin we are hearing. Does it matter? This disc does not provide an answer, but it does provide much pleasure.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Josquin: Inviolata

Jacob Heringman plays Josquin Inviolata

Jacob Heringman lute & vihuela
65:07
Inventa INV1004

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There have been many excellent recordings of lute music in recent years, and Jacob Heringman’s new CD of music by Josquin Des Prez (c.1450/1455-1521) is surely up with the best of them. Josquin’s music is sublime, and is enhanced by Heringman’s unhurried interpretation. There are no foot-tapping dance rhythms, no complex fantasies to amaze with virtuosity. This is sacred music – Marian motets –  by arguably the finest composer of his generation, and with it Heringman succeeds in creating a sound world of inner peace and serenity.
 
Lute intabulations are more than merely re-writing music in tablature. Skill is required in  deciding which notes to include, which to leave out, and which to decorate. In some cases, lutenists would use material from a vocal original as a starting point for creating an entirely new composition – a prelude or a fantasia.
 
In his excellent liner notes Heringman writes: “We know very little of the circumstances in which lute intabulations were played but they require a calm, small space, a refuge from the outside world where one might contemplate an inner one.” Such a place is St Cuthbert’s Chapel at Ushaw, where the recording was made. Its warm, clear acoustic is ideal for the lute. Heringman maintains that today’s lutenists should be as creative as their forebears were 500 years ago, and add something of their own to the music they play, rather than always slavishly recreate note for note the intabulations of others.
 
The CD begins with Heringman’s own intabulation of Josquin’s Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, Virgo serena. It is a long piece – just short of nine minutes. All four voices are included in the intabulation. Heringman sustains it well, with tastefully restrained divisions, as it works its way through contrasting sections. The motet ends with some very slow chords for the words “O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen”, not actually sung, of course, but imagined through the lute. Heringman uses a lute in E built by Michael Lowe, the lower pitch adding a certain gravitas.
 
Using the same lute, there follows an intabulation by Hans Gerle (published in 1533) of Josquin’s 5-voice Inviolata, integra et casta es. There are three sections. Gerle extends the range of the lute by tuning the 6th course down a tone for the sake of including all the low F’s. Alternative solutions could have been to omit them, include them an octave higher, or transpose all voices up a tone, which would set the piece uncomfortably high on the fingerboard of the lute. Re-tuning the sixth course of the lute seems the best option to me, although it results in some pretty weird chord shapes. Gerle omits some long notes, particularly where two voices are close in pitch. Almost all the divisions decorate the top part. They are for the most part formulaic and predictable, but nevertheless effective in sustaining the overall sound.
 
Heringman plays tracks 5-10 on a vihuela in G by Martin Haycock. The lute and vihuela share the same tuning, and often it is possible for the same music to be played on either instrument. However, apart from the obvious difference in body shape, there is another important difference: the strings of the lute are spaced closer at the nut than they are at the bridge, whereas the strings of the vihuela are close to parallel. Parallel stringing helps with awkward stretches high up the neck, and enables a vihuelist intabulator to make fewer compromises in tracking the original voice parts. The shorter string length of Heringman’s vihuela also helps with difficult chords.
 
Tracks 5-11 are derived from Josquin’s Missa de Beate Virgine. First is an intabulation by Alonso Mudarra (c.1510-1580) of Kyrie I, which has sections marked “Josquin” (for example, the last nine bars) to show where the intabulation closely follows Josquin’s original, and “Glosa” for extra material added by Mudarra. For Kyrie II Heringman turns to another vihuelist, Enriquez de Valderrábano (fl. 1547), but rather than use the note-for-note intabulation on folio 85r of Silva de Sirenas, he plays Valderrábano’s Fantasia on 73v which parodies Josquin’s Kyrie II (Fantasia remedada al chirie). In a similar vein, Heringman includes a short prelude of his own based on Mariam coronans from the same mass.
 
For the last track of music associated with Josquin’s Missa de Beate Virgine Heringman plays an intabulation of Cum sancto spiritu by Hans Neusidler (c. 1508/9-1563) printed in Der ander theil des Lautenbuchs (1536). It tracks Josquin’s vocal original quite closely, with divisions added mainly to the top part, but not exclusively so. Neusidler’s divisions in this volume are faster and more complex than those in his earlier volume – Ein Newgeordent Künstlich Lautenbuch – and there are some semiquavers here and there. As with other intabulators working long after Josquin’s death, Neusidler sharpens some notes and modernises cadences, so Josquin’s archaic endings of submediant-tonic are altered to leading note-tonic, usually with fast divisions. The piece ends – as do many German intabulations – with an extra flourish to a reiterated final chord.
 
In his liner notes Heringman argues a strong case for modern-day lutenists not always to follow slavishly intabulations of the past, but be creative and make up their own. This he does to good effect in his own intabulation of Josquin’s Salve Regina. The CD ends with an intabulation of Josquin’s Stabat Mater by Simon Gintzler (c.1500 – after 1547). Heringman gives a sensitive performance of Josquin’s touching portrayal of the inexplicable grief experienced by Mary watching her son die in agony on the cross.
 
Stewart McCoy



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Recording

Desprez: Le Septiesme Livre de Chansons

CD cover of Josquin 7th book of chansons on Ricercar Dominique Visse

Ensemble Clément Janequin, Dominique Visse
61:14
Ricercar RIC423

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Most of the works on this recording are selected from Le septiesme livre, which consists of 24 chansons, mainly by Josquin, in five and six parts, which was published in Antwerp by Tielman Susato in 1545. Fifteen of Josquin’s compositions appear on the disc, all but one from this livre, plus two laments for him by Gombert and Vinders, both of which are included in the livre, also two solo instrumental settings by Narvaez and Newsidler of the chanson Mille regretz which is usually attributed to Josquin, though the earliest, and unique, attribution to him is in a late source, Susato’s L’unziesme livre of 1549. In most other early sources it is anonymous, although in one it is attributed to Lemaire, who is thought by some musicologists perhaps to be the author of the text; Josquin is known to have set another poem by him. Of more significance in the context of the present recording is that the rest of the chansons have so far survived the recent scholarly attempts to give his oeuvre a short back and sides. Any selection of pieces by Josquin is going to consist of distinguished music, so the success of a programme such as this lies in the process of that selection, and its presentation. Although any sequence of such works can of course nowadays be shuffled, the order in which the items appear provides a variety of content, both in subject matter and in scoring. For this listener the most striking work both as music and interpretation is Baises moy ma doulce’ amye. Originally in four already canonic parts, it appears posthumously in this livre in six parts, with an extra canon. Its text of seeming triviality is set incongruously to music with a dense texture rendered the more intense by dramatic dissonances; one could almost be listening to a work by Gombert, with Tallis distantly audible, and Byrd’s unpublished O salutaris hostia on the musical horizon.

It is a pleasure to listen to this repertory, but not in these performances. The faux-rustic tonal quality becomes wearing, and the bucolic conclusion to Allegez moy douce plaisant brunette is irritating on repeated hearings. Given the nature of many of the texts, it certainly would not be appropriate to sing these chansons in the manner of canticles at choral evensong, but the uningratiating timbre that the singers adopt tends to grate. (Cut Circle carry off this manner of singing on their recent disc of Ockeghem’s songs, Musique en Wallonie MEW1995, my review posted October 15.) Most performances are accompanied by one or two instruments: lute and/or positive organ or muselaar. These add nothing to the performances, and it is ironic that the author of the excellent booklet justifies the inclusion of instruments on the basis of wording on the title-pages of the Sixiesme and Huitiesme livres in Susato’s series from 1545, while there is no mention of instrumental participation in the Septiesme livre from which most of these pieces are taken. An exception is La Bernardina played here on the lute and organ, which is not from this livre and survives as a textless composition. Cucur langoureulx, another wonderful work with pre-echoes of Gombert, is sung without accompaniment but this exposes some unattractive vowel sounds, while the rendering of Ma bouche rit, coming as it does after the effective Baises moy ma doulce’ amye, contains some sour tuning during the initial forced heartiness, though the more sedate ending is well handled. It is good that the two laments for Josquin by Gombert and Vinders are included on this disc, even if these performances would not be first recommendations for either work, especially the latter with more sour tuning on the top line, a fault also audible in Plus nuls regretz. The presence of Gombert’s classic illustrates just how much he learned from Josquin. For this reason and for those given above, the material on this disc has been well chosen. Other listeners may well be less troubled by the performances.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Cavalieri Imperiali

Lambert Colson CD cover of Cavalieri imperiali Cornetto virtuosi in Vienna

Zenobi & Sansoni, the great cornetto masters
InALTO, Lambert Colson
64:36
Ricercar RIC419

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This programme embraces imaginatively the actual musical commerce across the mountains between Northern Italy and the Hapsburg empire, personified by the two ennobled cornett players Zenobi and Sansoni. These late 16th-century “cavalieri di cornetto” were in high demand in both geographies and admired as much by their peers as by their employers. The all-instrumental programme starts bravely – and arrestingly – with a performance of the Lassus madrigalian motet Concupiscendo concupiscit anima mea. The marvellous expressiveness of the playing of such obviously text-coloured, highly-wrought phrases ironically leaves the listener slightly hungry for what’s missing. This bravery is nevertheless to be applauded, and the translation to instruments works without reservation in other pieces – particularly in the Luzzaschi which is the next example of this sort on the disc. Here the boot is on the other foot as it were, since, in the spectacular genre of musica secreta, voices were surely taking much inspiration from the instrumentalists of the time. After that arresting start using a full ensemble, the second piece is performed on solo cornett and harpsichord, thus bookending the scales of ensemble represented, and evoking the famous contemporary description of Zenobi:  accompanied by a closed-lidded harpsichord, and playing in perfect balance. The third piece finds us in the familiar territory of Castello, played with verve and in a more open acoustic than the previous “chamber” sound. The playing styles, the genres included, the mix of familiar and less familiar works, the changes in scale and acoustic are all extremely well thought through and beautifully rendered. The last genre to be encountered in the programme, and completing the set on offer, is the exuberant Weckmann-style Valentini, Schmelzer and Neri pieces with their heterogeneous mixes of instruments, bringing a new conversational element and extrovert performances to the mix. A tour de force.

Stephen Cassidy

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Recording

Ockeghem: Les Chansons

CD cover of Chansons by Ockeghem Cut Circle

Cut Circle, Jesse Rodin
133:40 (2 CDs in a hardbacked book, CD size)
Musique en Wallonie MEW1995

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It is always a joy to anticipate listening to music by Ockeghem, who was born at St Ghislain, near Mons, probably between 1410 and 1420, and died in 1497, probably at Tours.  This pleasure can, however, be tempered depending upon the quality and interpretation of the music. Not only do we as listeners have our own agendas for hearing music, but also performers have their agendas for performing it. For instance, it is possible for the listener to tolerate an indifferent performance which is nonetheless interpreted acceptably, while excellent musicians can have bees in their bonnets which result in performances which sound ghastly or just plain silly. Indeed, sometimes within one recording project, interpretations and performances can vary between the sublime and the ridiculous. So while there are few finer prospects than listening to the entire corpus of songs by Ockeghem, there remains the question of what the performances will actually sound like: will repeated hearings seem an attractive proposition, or will there be aspects of them that seem like continually running one’s tongue over a sore in the mouth?

First, what of the music itself? How could this be other than wonderful when it consists of all twenty surviving songs with secure attributions to Ockeghem? In fact, this double album consists of 24 songs, two other items being his arrangement for four voices of a song for trio by the (probably) Spanish composer Juan Cornago, and his arrangement in two parts of the famous O rosa bella nowadays attributed to the English composer John Bedyngham, plus Ockeghem’s lament for Binchois Mort tu as navre and Josquin’s lament for Ockeghem himself. Half the items can be heard sung by another American ensemble, Blue Heron, on Johannes Ockeghem: complete songs volume one (Blue Heron BHCD 1010), which I reviewed for EMR on 21 February 2020. The majority of the songs are rondeaux, many of the rest virelais. Although there is a prevailing tone of melancholy throughout the oeuvre, there are subtleties of emphasis, illustrated early in the collection by downright depression in Presque transi or passionate devotion in Ma maitresse, the mood punctured by the boisterous L’autre d’antan which takes its cue from references in the text to dancing. Then melancholy is restored by the agonised introspection of Ma bouche rit. And so it continues, the first disc concluding with the three-part version of the ululatory Je n’ay deuil, followed by the assertive Les desleaulx and finally Tant fuz, its introspective first stanza contrasting with a more animated second, reflecting the structure of the virelai. The second disc continues in a similar vein: melancholy or downbeat songs interspersed with others of a different disposition, all with the same variety of outlook, intensity of expression and musical magnetism. The disc begins with S’elle m’armera/petite camusette, another of the few songs in four parts, its text described in the excellent booklet (written by the conductor Jesse Rodin) as both silly and ridiculous but with its musical integrity intact thanks to Ockeghem’s versatility. Disc 1 includes Ockeghem’s arrangement for four voices of Juan Cormago’s cancion Qu’es mi vida, already mentioned, and the other arrangement mentioned above occurs on disc 2, an altus discantus added to Bedyngham’s discantus in his famous O rosa bella, a project which provoked one musicologist to ask petulantly why Ockeghem bothered! Listeners can also enjoy his rightly famous Fors seulement l’attente, placed before his own Fors seulement contre seemingly a riposte which takes over its tenor. In some cases it is the entire structure of a piece which creates the impression, such as the almost contorted canon which is Prenez sur moy while in others it is a detail such as the intriguing downward octave scale in the bass part of Ung aultre. Finally, the disc, and the entire double album, concludes with Mort tu as navre, Ockeghem’s sublime lament a4 for Binchois, a work impressive even by Ockeghem’s elevated standards.

Does the performance of these works match their musical standard? In insight, yes; in commitment, yes; in technical expertise, yes: listen, for example, to the fine singing low in her register by the soprano Sonja DuToit Tengblad in the riveting La despourveue. Nevertheless, the listener’s personal taste must come into play. On the minus side, the first word of the first track, Josquin’s lament for Ockeghem, is bellowed, and with plenty of alternative versions available, I shall not return to listen to this overly assertive interpretation again, albeit the reasoning for this clarion call is provided in the booklet, and might well meet with the approval of other listeners. In one or two songs such as S’elle m’armera some singers use knowingly affected portamento, which becomes irritating upon repeated hearings. On the plus side, every note in every song is democratically audible, and its relationship with every other note is clearly expressed, the harmony and the melody, in other words the vertical and the horizontal, musically comprehensible. Great care is taken in conveying the unique meaning of each song: listening to the songs can be like observing the interior workings of so many sophisticated timepieces; yet it is perfectly possible to listen to all these works simply for pleasure, for the sheer beauty of the music itself, and for the emotions they express. The singers use very open vowel sounds but apart from a small scattering of instances, this is not otherwise jarring. The fabric of Blue Heron’s performances is more finely spun, and they – very sparingly and tastefully – use instruments, so there is sufficient overall difference between the two sets to offer either choice, or the pleasure of possessing alternative perspectives on (for now) half of the pieces. As for Cut Circle, the intensity and intelligence of their performances won me over after a disastrous start, as subsequently did their audible – and infectious – enjoyment in performing these exquisite and enchanting songs. 

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Monteverdi: Il Terzo Libro de’ Madrigali

Concerto Italiano Monteverdi terzo libro

Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini
64:33
naïve OP 30580

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Monteverdi’s appointment to the court of Mantua in 1590 or 1591 brought to the young composer new opportunities, not the least of which was contact with the Mantuan maestro di cappella Giaches de Wert, one of the great madrigalists of the day, and two of the greatest poets active at of the end of the 16th century: Giovanni Guarini and Torquato Tasso, both occasional visitors to Mantua. Monteverdi’s arrival was also near- coincidental with the recent succession to the duchy of Vincenzo Gonzago, whose expansion of court musical activity included the establishment of a consort of singers modelled on the famous ‘concerto delle dame’ in the rival court at Ferrara.

Put all the above ingredients into the mixer and you arrive at Monteverdi’s third book of madrigals, Il terzo libro de’ madrigali, published in 1592. For Guarini, whose erotic poetry provided the bulk of Monteverdi’s settings in Book 3, and the taste for the sensual combination of high voices established at Ferrara it is necessary to look no further than the delicate tapestry of the first half of the opening madrigal, ‘La giovinetta pianta’, the luminescent texture employed in talking of ‘the tender young plant’ perhaps less potent than in more serious texts but sensuous none the less. All the madrigals in Book 3 are scored for five voices, still of course a cappella at this point in the composer’s development. One of the remarkable features is the manner in which Monteverdi consistently alternates contrasts of colour between high and low voices and texture between polyphony and homophony, nearly always to dramatic purpose. These characteristics are well illustrated in the final madrigal of the collection, the two-part ‘Rimanti in pace’, to a text by Livio Celiano, a pen name for Angelo Grillo. The declamatory poem is part direct speech and part narrative, the composer clearly differentiating the two by giving the parting Tirso’s departing words to his Fillida, ‘Stay and peace be with you’, given to upper voices, while those narrated are darker and more homophonic. The brief cycle comes to a shattering conclusion with the reiteration of Fillida’s unbearably poignant motif, ‘Deh, cara anima mia’ (Tell me, dear heart of mine … who takes you from me?).

Such settings mark a foretaste of the innate dramatic gifts that would eventually lead to Monteverdi becoming the first great opera composer. They are even more in evidence in a pair of three-part cycles in which the text is drawn from episodes in Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, the first, ‘Vattene pur crudel’ describing the fury and then torment of Armida deserted by Rinaldo, the second the distress of the Christian knight Tancredi after he has killed the Saracen warrior-maiden Clorinda, a topic to which Monteverdi would return memorably in Book 8 almost fifty years later. The former, again a declamatory alternation of direct speech and narrative, the latter vividly descriptive at the point at the end of part 2, where Armida, faint from extreme emotion, lapses into unconsciousness as quiet dissonance takes over before the third part opens with a magical evocation of ‘nothing but empty silence all about her’ greets the reviving Armida.

The madrigal ensemble of Rinaldo Alessandrini’s Concerto Italiano has gone through several reincarnations since he first started recording Monteverdi’s madrigals. Indeed Alessandro reminds us in a booklet note that it is fifteen years since his last complete madrigal book recording (Book 6). The present ensemble is at least a match for any of its predecessors, with both individuality – the two leading sopranos, Francesca Cassinari and Monica Piccinini, have pleasingly differentiated voices – and an excellent blend that retains enough clarity to allow contrapuntal strands to stand out clearly. Diction and articulation, too, are excellent. Just once or twice I did wonder if Alessandrini was making a little too much of tempo contrasts (‘O primavera’ is an example), but such doubts are rapidly banished within the context of such exceptionally musical performances.

Brian Robins        

Categories
Recording

Josquin: Masses

The Tallis Scholars complete their survey of Josquin's masses

Hercules Dux Ferrarie, D’ung altre amer, Faysant regretz
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
71:40
Gimell CDGIM 051

October 2020!
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This is the final disc in The Tallis Scholars’ complete recording of Josquin des Pres’s masses. Perhaps it is just as well, because this reviewer is running out of superlatives for the music itself and for this choir’s performances of it. Peter Phillips makes substantial claims for these works in his accompanying notes, and it could indeed be said that, so varied is Josquin’s treatment of the Mass text throughout the entire series, many of the eighteen works could almost seem to have been composed by different composers. (Indeed, the Josquin canon has come under intense musicological scrutiny in recent decades, and Missa Da pacem, included in the series, is more likely to have been composed by Bauldeweyn, notwithstanding conflicting attributions to Josquin. This is clearly stated in the recording’s booklet.) This final disc provides some of the knottiest music in the series, and some of the most challenging for the listener. Much of it is music of obsession, with Josquin’s repeated use of one particular motif of four notes in Missa Faysant regretz set beside the egomania of Ercole I d’Este of Ferrera, dedicatee of Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie. To illustrate this one can do no better than to quote Peter Phillips’s note in the accompanying booklet: “To understand how this Mass is constructed it is necessary only to remember that Duke Ercole liked to hear his name sung obviously and often. To this end Josquin took his name and title, HERCULES DUX FERRARIE, and turned their vowels into music by way of the solmisation syllables of the Guidonian hexachord, giving a very neat little melody: … re ut re ut re fa mi re … He then writes these eight notes to be sung 47 times …” The remaining piece Missa D’ung aultre amer is the antithesis of such constructions, being an essay in brevity and simplicity based upon one of Ockeghem’s finest chansons, no doubt as an act of homage by Josquin to the man who might have been his teacher.

A digression. Having seen the British gentleman I am about to mention with his wife at a concert of music by Byrd in the Wigmore Hall, London, a few years ago, I will of course no longer hear a word said against him, but I cannot resist mentioning the resemblance of Ercole, whose portrait is reproduced on the front of the accompanying booklet, to the prominent politician Lord Heseltine. I draw no conclusion other than that they share an ability to appreciate great Renaissance composers.

And as Byrd said of his own music in 1611, “a song that is well and artificially made cannot be well perceived nor understood at the first hearing, but the oftner you shall heare it, the better cause of liking you will discover.” Repeated hearings of the music on this disc keep revealing its felicitous qualities. The obsessive aspects of the music become part of a bigger, broader musical picture as Josquin manipulates them to support the overall construction and rhetoric of his masses. As Peter Phillips notes in his booklet, approaching the point from a slightly different direction, this is strikingly illustrated in the third Agnus of Missa Faysant regretz where, for the only time in the work, Josquin has the sopranos sing the complete superius line from the rondeau by Walter Frye (one source has Binchois) on which the mass is based, over the intricate counterpoint in the three lower parts. Missa D’ung aultre amer is eccentric. A remarkably brief Gloria clocks in at below two minutes, with a motet Tu solus qui facis mirabilia replacing the Benedictus, the final section of which, “Audi nostra suspiria”, begins with a striking passage in the style of mediaeval faburden, comparable with a similar briefer moment at “qui locutus est” in the Credo of the Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie, and the entire mass concludes with an exquisite cadence.

For all Ercole’s entitled narcissism, it is mountainously to the credit of Josquin that his mass can be appreciated on its own terms as a piece of music without an awareness – or at least without taking any notice – of the repetitions of the autarchic Ercole’s name, no more than one needs to focus upon the plainsong while listening to an In nomine. In the accompanying booklet, Peter Phillips notes favourite passages in this and the other masses. These are the insights of someone who has conducted and indeed lived these eighteen works, experiencing them profoundly from the inside. From the humble outside, I would particularly mention the many wonderful passages in two parts in this mass, particularly “pleni sunt caeli” from the Sanctus, and all the duets in the first Agnus. Overall it is one of the major masses in this remarkable series.

The series began with what was even then almost frighteningly fine performances of the Missae Pange lingua and La sol fa mi re. The former gained all the attention, but for this listener it was the latter which left me even more astonished at both the music and the performance: I expected Pange lingua to be great, but was taken aback at the quality of a work more from the margins of Josquin’s output, its qualities laid bare by the forensically beautiful singing of The Tallis Scholars under Peter Phillips. And here they still are, 34 years later, doing a major work full justice and laying bare the glories of two more of those marginal masses.

Richard Turbet