early music review

Amici Voices, Terence Charlston
59:51
Amici Sounds ASO 1415

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his CD is the musical equivalent of the growing fashion for self-publishing in the book world – a minimally packaged account of what looks like a concert programme, committed to CD primarily for sale at concerts and enabled by financial support, in this case from Agincourt 600. What it contains are pleasantly stylish performances of mainly mainstream sacred and secular choral music from the 15th century as well as contemporary music for keyboard performed on a reconstruction of the earliest surviving harpsichord in the world (c. 1480). The by necessity terse programme notes make at least one rather sweeping claim for the programme, that it ‘forms an unusual and unique response in words and music to this pivotal and controversial historical event’ when, in fact, most of the repertoire has absolutely nothing to do with Agincourt. This sounds more like a statement which survived from a grant application than anything of relevance to the actual CD. Having said that, the performances of the albeit very familiar choral music are all engaging and accomplished, and the music for keyboard performed on the reconstructed upright harpsichord is intriguing. I’m not sure that it adds anything to our understanding of the music of this period, but it would serve as an authentic and inexpensive general introduction to those coming afresh to the music of the time of Agincourt.

D. James Ross

The disc is available directly from the group’s website.

Graindelavoix, Björn Schmelzer
76:06
Glossa GCD P32112

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] recently struggled to enjoy these performers’ account of Machaut’s Messe de Notre Dame, but I thought they might be back on more fruitful territory here with a speculative liturgical reconstruction of Cypriot Vespers of the 15th century featuring the music of Jean Hanelle, the Flemish composer now credited with the entire contents of Turin manuscript J:II:9. Framed as a service in Cyprus where Hanelle spent most of his creative life, the CD juxtaposes traditional Maronite and Greek- and Arabo-Byzantine chant with Hanelle’s polyphony. I tried to just let this mélange wash over me, but I found musicological alarms going off left, right and centre. Why do some of Hanelle’s motets (such as 9. O Clavis David) deserve relatively straight if quirky polyphonic performance while others (such as 8. O Radix Jesse) are subjected to an amorphous, floaty rendition which all but destroys all concept of the rhythms and overall structure? Even assuming that 15th-century incomers to Cyprus applied the same performance conventions to their music as present-day ‘traditional’ singers do (and when you think about it that is quite a conceptual leap), why is there such variation of approach within the way Graindelavoix present this repertoire? And remember the bad old days when the ‘living’ Solemnes school of plainchant singing dictated the way everybody sang historic chant? This is a CD which is enjoyable in parts, ironically in my opinion at the two extremes of pretty conventional polyphonic singing and ‘traditionally’ presented eastern chants, where the Byzantine chanter Adrian Sirbu has clearly provided useful advice, but I found the cross-over attempts unconvincing and poorly justified in the notes (another of these pesky mock interviews!). It is impressive to find Björn Schmelzer continuing to plough his distinctive furrow, questioning many of our fundamental assumptions about the performance of early choral repertoire, and his CDs continue to provide food for thought as well as continuing to attract the attention of a loyal following. And perhaps my growing disconnect with them is more a sign of my advancing age and hardening attitudes than his increasing self-indulgence. But I hope not.

D. James Ross

La Morra, Corina Marti & Michael Gondko
64:54
Glossa GCD922515

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he rediscovery of an entirely obscure 15th-century composer of the greatest merit is a rare event, but this is undoubtedly what eastern European musicology has achieved in the unearthing of the music of the Pomeranian composer Petrus Wilhelm de Grudenz. A contemporary of Du Fay and associated now with some forty composition, on the evidence of the music recorded here, Grudenz’s is a talent to be reckoned with and one which in the fullness of time may prove to deserve the same elevated status as the likes of Du Fay, Binchois and Ockeghem. Belonging very much to the mainstream of 15th-century polyphony, Grudenz seems nonetheless to demonstrate certain individual compositional traits such as a penchant for catchy syncopations and occasionally unconventional harmonic progressions which may be an individual or a regional inflexion.

In bringing us a cross-section of Grudenz’s music, La Morra, working under the auspices of the Schola Cantrum Basiliensis, have set it in a context of other eastern European music of the period by other unknowns such as Nicolaus de Radom and Othmarus Opilionis de Jawor, while at the same time pointing out that the Eastern European convention at this time of encrypting the composer’s name or leaving it out altogether means that the anonymous works on the CD may also be by Grudenz, or may conceal further composers of considerable merit. The performances by the voices and instruments of La Morra are elegantly understated but beautifully poised, allowing this wonderfully crafted music to speak for itself. As Howard Weiner’s excellent programme note points out, perhaps the true value of this unexpected discovery is to challenge our perception of musical development as relying on ‘centres of excellence’ with diminishing peripheries, as opposed to a model encompassing a widely disseminated language with local inflexions and local practitioners with something valuable to add.

D. James Ross