Category: Recording

ORA, Suzi Digby
78:00
HWM 906102
De Monte+ Bray, L’Estrange, Panufnik, Park, Pott & Williams

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is the first in a series of discs which I am told will be released at a rate of two a year for five years. Each will feature a work by a Renaissance master, plus several choral works inspired by the Renaissance work in question and commissioned by ORA, a select choir which could equally be named The Usual Suspects. That flippantly said, the singers combine to create an ensemble which lives up to their reputations. They sensibly launch the series with what it says on the tin, a masterpiece by a master, Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices. No gems come more sparkling than this. The choir also sings two other works by Byrd: the famous Ave verum corpus from his first book of Gradualia  (1605) and the substantial unpublished Quomodo cantabimus  paired as is rather boringly usual on disc with Philippe de Monte’s companion piece Super flumina Babylonis.

The performance of the Mass itself is beautiful. Just occasionally in the longer movements one could perhaps wish for the balance to favour the inner parts a fraction more, and throughout Byrd’s contributions there were moments when a bit more pneumatic drill from the basses would have been welcome. Tempi just tip over into the brisk side. The corollary of this is that the interpretation misses that last elusive pinch of memorability. I should like to think that even if I had not initially known the identity of the performers, the recording of the Mass by The Choir of Westminster Cathedral (Hyperion CDA68038) would still have conveyed to me the profound aura of devotion, derived from their theological and liturgical engagement with the work, which radiates from this recording. From another perspective, the recording by Stile Antico (Harmonia Mundi HMU 807572), although sung by musicians who seem to have been nurtured in the Anglican tradition, is nevertheless a profoundly thoughtful performance as devout in its own way as Westminster Cathedral’s. It is a complete pleasure to listen to the recording by ORA, and its beauty impacts powerfully, but is fractionally short of the profundity of those other two. Ever since the pioneering disc by King’s College Cambridge under David Willcocks, there have been some wonderful recordings of this work – the Elizabethan Singers on the old Saga label, and St John’s College Cambridge originally on the budget Classics for Pleasure to name but two contrasting versions – but as Suzy Digby remarks in her notes for the recording, we are in a glittering age of choral performing, and ORA’s version – alongside those other recent versions by Westminster Cathedral and Stile Antico – most effectively illustrate and confirm this with their recordings of Byrd’s Mass.

Furthermore, while ORA’s performances of Monte’s Super flumina  and Byrd’s Ave verum  are as good as that of the Mass, their version of Byrd’s Quomodo  has a good claim to be among the finest of the eight-and-counting now recorded, all of them by outstanding ensembles at the top of their respective games. Whereas some versions emphasize the massiveness of Byrd’s construction, or respond to the tension of the presumed subtext, or to the sheer virtuosity of the writing, ORA’s version possesses an airiness that sets it apart from the others, while not defaulting to blandness or mere beauty for its own sake, and is at the opposite pole from the slower, pensive, anxious and almost resigned interpretation which is one of the highlights on The Cardinall’s Musick Byrd Edition (disc 3 of 13, ASV CD GAU 179). This deserves to be a deciding factor for purchasers interested in a programme that combines a Renaissance classic with modern commissions which respond to it.

The majority of the half dozen pieces premiered on this disc do the old master proud. The composers were asked to set their own reactions to the individual movements of the Mass. Not all of the composers use the texts in their responses to Byrd’s settings, but Roxanna Panufnik does so in her Kyrie after Byrd, and produces a stunning piece that contains echoes of the music and momentum of the original, but which is a strikingly personal reaction to the text, subtly varying Byrd’s structure and exploiting the possibilities of a six-part choir (with an extra bass) both vertically and horizontally, in reduced and, especially, full scoring. Francis Pott has already established his Byrdian credentials in his excellent Mass for Eight Parts  and for his take on Byrd’s Gloria he sets Laudate Dominum. After an unpromising beginning, when I began to dread some bombastic pastiche, the work develops magnificently into a sustained emulation of Byrd’s intense creativity, its five parts sounding like more. Alexander L’Estrange’s text employs passages from the Credo beside excerpts from, amongst others, Byrd’s will and John Donne’s poem Show me, deare Christ  which gives the work its title. Regrettably this causes the work to lack cohesion and momentum, as does the use of several musical styles (besides bits of Byrd I detected moments of Monteverdi, though I do not know whether the composer intended this) and I am afraid my concentration began to wander before the middle of this piece. The title for the entire disc is provided by Owain Park’s Upheld by stillness, a setting of Kathleen Raine’s poem The word  responding to Byrd’s Sanctus. I really hate saying this about works by young aspiring musicians such as Alexander and Owain, but I feel much the same about the latter’s setting as I do about Alexander’s, and believe that both men could do with the musical equivalent of a good literary sub-editor to tell them where and how to take out the unnecessary, sluggish and, I am afraid, self-indulgent bits, because there are good passages within both pieces. Unfortunately the downsides are all too readily exposed by their proximity to the preceding pieces by Roxanna and Francis, and by Charlotte Bray’s Agnus Dei  in which the composer fearlessly follows Byrd’s structure but sings out with a confident individual voice, again exploiting polyphony and homophony while sustaining the narrative momentum which is always an essential element in Byrd’s own music. I do not know any more of Charlotte’s music (a situation I intend to rectify soon) but her curriculum vitae is evidence of an outstanding talent, a fact that I can well believe on the basis of hearing this beautiful and challenging response to one of Byrd’s greatest and most deeply felt pieces.

This level of modern creativity is sustained in the final piece on the disc, Ave verum corpus  re-imagined by Roderick Williams, which grabs one by the ears and the throat from the start, and continues with a steady momentum exploiting both massive homophony and ecstatic polyphony. It is a fine and striking work in its own right and, like the other new pieces by Roxanna, Francis and Charlotte, deserves to become a standard repertory item in both sacred and secular musical environments. All four are worthy of their original.

Even if one already possesses one or more versions of Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices  – and it is a work which invites and can bear any number of interpretations – it is well worth owning the disc under review, to hear the Mass in this accomplished performance by ORA in the company of some outstanding modern compositions which respond to it, with the bonus of Byrd’s best-known motet, plus one of the finest recordings of his increasingly popular large-scale unpublished masterpiece Quomodo cantabimus. Be tempted, give in.

Richard Turbet

NOTE: As we received only a promotional copy, Richard has been unable to award stars for the contents of the booklet or the overall presentation of the finished product.

Josquin’s Miserere and the Savonarolan legacy
magnificat, Philip Cave
84:00 (2 CDs in a plastic case)
Linn Records CKD 517
+Byrd, Clemens non Papa, Gombert, Le Jeune, Lassus, Lhéritier & Palestrina

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his pair of discs celebrates the silver jubilee of Magnificat, one of many outstanding early music choirs who have made the world a better place with their recordings and performances of familiar and, particularly, unfamiliar repertory. These are based on research and editions by reliable scholars such as their conductor Philip Cave and regular soprano/mean Sally Dunkley. To celebrate their notable anniversary they have chosen music on a Savonarolan theme composed by eight great composers from the period that began with Josquin and culminated with Byrd. So distinguished is every track on this pair of discs, and so distinguished are the performances of every track, that each item is a good reason by itself for purchasing the album. Adventurous and discerning scholars and performers have now begun to reveal that the hitherto Lost Generation of mainly Franco-Flemish composers possesses greatness to put beside their bookends Josquin and Palestrina. The repertory on this double album – which contains some premiere recordings – amply illustrates the consistent and relentless musical talent of this era.

The disc begins with Miserere mei, Deus, at over 17 minutes a work of sustained inspiration, by Josquin. It is surprising to realise that this monumental piece is in only four parts with an extra tenor in the refrains, yet the melodic and consequent harmonic creativity never flags. This is complemented in a performance of sustained clarity and excellence, conveying the meaning of the text – Psalm LI, Have mercy upon me O God  – and implying the circumstances of Savonarola’s meditation upon it, while never slipping into gratuitous theatricality. There could be a case for suggesting that this is the best performance on disc of a motet by Josquin.

Lheritier, one of the Lost Generation whose work is now being discovered and appreciated, sets part of the same text in six parts. He is thought to have been a pupil of Josquin, and his setting, although referring briefly to Josquin’s, is more luxuriant in its sustained use of all or most of the parts and a more astringent harmonic palate. This is another glorious work and, when the work ends, it comes as a surprise that it is timed at over nine minutes.

Setting In te, Domine, speravi, part of Psalm XXX on which Savonarola also meditated, Gombert produces a work of intense and almost driven beauty, a premiere on disc mined from the “Lost” repertory. The thicker textures in no way imply any cloying or lack of momentum. The polyphony is crystal clear. The final cadence brings to mind the one that concludes Byrd’s early masterpiece in eight parts Quomodo cantabimus, the only place where Byrd uses it, emphasizing that in neglecting these composers, posterity has also been neglecting the considerable debt owed to them by their illustrious English successors, from Taverner via Tallis to even as late as Byrd.

Clemens is another Lost composer and he seems to have influenced Byrd in the way Gombert influenced Tallis. Here, Clemens also sets part of Psalm XXX in a style similar to his older contemporaries Gombert and Lheritier albeit audibly two or three decades further in time and with, in this work, more flashing dissonances. Again thanks to the intensely beautiful flow of the music facilitated by another wonderful interpretation by Magnificat, the alleged ten minutes are over in what seems the twinkling of an eye.

For those of us easily bored by the upbeat major-key Palestrina, it is a pleasure to encounter one of his works that is so clearly influenced by his Franco-Flemish predecessors. Tribularer, si nescirem  is audibly in the succession of the three composers just mentioned, yet has all the hallmarks of the “classical” Palestrina in its smoothness of line and absence of discords. None of the latter is to sacrifice the emotional weight of the piece. One can only express regret that more of this side of the composer is not performed more often instead of the usual sunnier (and frankly sometimes blander) fare.

Something similar could be said about Lassus. Early in the revival of Renaissance music a few of his pieces became embedded in the repertories of sacred and secular choirs, to the detriment of his more interesting output. Where are the recordings of a piece such as his Ad Dominum cum tribularer? Rightly there are many versions of Byrd’s huge setting in eight parts, yet the slighter but still impressive setting in six by Lassus is unrepresented in the current catalogue, and is seldom performed (The Cardinall’s Musick sang it last year at the Cadogan Hall in London). However, an early music insider with good contacts to performers recently told me that Lassus is box office poison in Britain when it comes to public performances. One wonders why. For all its rich texture and occasional chromaticisms Infelix ego  is not the best piece on this disc, possessing neither the contrapuntal flow of The Lost Boys nor the more modern narrativity of Palestrina and Byrd; perhaps it is as much about who he is not, as much as who he is.

Le Jeune’s setting of Tristitia obsedit me  is a bracing piece that hints at the words “non cessat”, and increasingly thereafter, that its composer particularly excelled in secular vocal music. Magnificat give it a deservedly good hearing.

The final piece on the album is also chronologically the latest, Byrd’s Infelix ego. Now that the early music movement is hopefully over the stage of stifling any feelings in or for the music (without resorting to histrionics of course) it can be appreciated that Byrd was deeply engaged with the text, and probably with the circumstances in which it was written. The result is precisely what I mentioned above – feelings without histrionics. As ever, Byrd takes the listener on a journey: he has a narrative, he tells a story, he relates a set of circumstances, he expresses a proposition, and the music keeps moving. Polyphony is the vehicle for much of this, getting us from A to Z with occasional climaxes where needed, and homophony plays a part in punctuating the ride, or changing the perspective, and also providing climaxes. No work in Byrd’s canon illustrates this better than Infelix ego  with incidental details such as where Byrd reduces his textures to draw attention to where Savonarola asks questions, or where towards the end at the critical word “misericordia” he introduces the massive and unprecedented A flat chord in a piece “in” B flat major. It is perhaps at this chord where Magnificat score over the many alternative versions. At one extreme Stile Antico’s interpretation is intense and introverted (Harmonia Mundi HMU 807463); at the other, The Cardinall’s Musick’s version is passionate (Hyperion CDA67779). In Stile’s version the A flat chord creeps up on the listener stealthily; in TCM’s, everything seems to be heading that way and they throw the kitchen sink at it though not in any tasteless or brash way – this is a brilliant choir putting their collective lungs to a climactic moment. Then among several others of distinction there are outstanding versions by Contrapunctus (Signum SIGCD 338) and Oxford Camerata (Naxos 8.550574) each with their own USP. Yet somehow, Magnificat’s magical sounding of this pivotal chord in the context of their beautifully sung mainstream interpretation renders it the most effective and indeed affecting of all the available versions, leastways at this crucial point: a fitting conclusion to a thoroughly distinguished recording.

Richard Turbet

The King’s Singers
54:54
Signum LC 15723

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his selection from the Palestrina’s settings of The Song of Songs  is interspersed by four of the composer’s Marian antiphons. Once you get used to the close recording and the King’s Singers’ distinctive ‘barbershop’ sound, these performances are highly enjoyable, benefiting from the singers’ diffident and yet expressive approach. Just occasionally the very close recording shows the alto voices at a disadvantage, but the singing is generally of a very high quality and the readings of these beautiful pieces is intelligent and sensuous. I take a little bit of exception to the title with its presumably intentionally punning use of the phrase ‘Biblical Passions’ – the Passion has a very specific religious meaning, and its extension to embrace the erotic underpinning of The Song of Songs  makes something of a nonsense of this. It is not entirely clear what context Palestrina’s Song of Songs  settings were intended for, but if – as seems likely – they were for private domestic consumption, then I am sure that the earliest performances would have sounded very much like the present recording. It is interesting to hear the Marian antiphons in the same context – almost certainly written for liturgical choral presentation, they work equally well sung by reduced forces and in a smaller acoustic. Indeed without listening closely to the texts, it would be difficult to differentiate the two repertoires from one another.

D. James Ross