Tag: Choral music

Funeral Motets & Deplorations
Cappella Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss
66:10
Harmonia mundi musique HMM 902620

There seems to have been something of a vogue for commemorative music around the end of the 15th-century, music and verse, which would mark the passing of great artists in both media, and it perhaps signals the establishment of composers and poets as individuals of note and status. It became customary for composers to lament the passing of their teachers, and to usefully list in these ‘deplorations’ their fellow students, providing musicologists with useful musical ‘genealogies’ for composers. Opening with Josquin’s exquisite ‘deploration’ for his teacher Johannes Ockeghem, this is a wonderfully comprehensive programme of music by Josquin associated with death including his extended settings of Planxit autem David and the Miserere, concluding fittingly with Musae Jovis by Nicolas Gombert, lamenting his late teacher, Josquin. Cappella Amsterdam produce a wonderfully pure sound and sing this music expressively and convincingly. I had one or two reservations about their pronunciation – surely the Renaissance pronunciation of the French ‘ois’ syllable as ‘way’ is fairly well established, and simply to sing the texts simply as if they were modern French is to lose something. I have to say that an entire programme of sung funeral music does begin to sound a little ‘samey’ – perhaps a piece or two of instrumental music interspersed would have alleviated the similarity of texture. We could perhaps have managed a little more passion in one or two of the pieces, such as the exceptional setting of Absalon fili mi, which – given the passion of the text and Josquin’s extraordinary musical response to it – receives a rather glib performance here. I notice that this is the first of a projected trilogy of deploration music by great composers of the Renaissance, so we await forthcoming albums.

D. James Ross

The Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, conducted by Stephen Darlington
Avie AV2395
5 CDs in a box

The last three decades have seen three remarkable recording projects, each consisting of five discs, devoted to English sacred music from either side of 1500. First, beginning in 1991, came The Sixteen featuring music from the Eton Choirbook. From the USA, starting in 2010, came Blue Heron, with revelatory works from the lesser known and later Peterhouse Partbooks. And beginning a year earlier, 2009, came Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford under the college’s Organist and Tutor in Music, Stephen Darlington, who also selected their material from the ample acres of the Eton Choirbook. Their final disc was released in 2017 and, as with the other two projects, once all five discs had been issued, they have been reissued as a boxed set this year, to coincide with Professor Darlington’s retirement after 33 years in post.

Across the five discs there are several works, such as Walter Lambe’s Magnificat (also to be found in the Carver Choirbook in Scotland) on disc I, which receive their recorded premieres. There are also a few works which are new to compact disc, but which have appeared on LPs that have never since been reissued in the newer format. One such work, also on disc I, is John Fawkyner’s Ave rosa sine spina. (Confusingly he turns up on disc III as Richard – he is indeed John in Timothy Day’s A discography of Tudor church music, 1989, but is Richard in Grove online dated 2001.) This was performed as part of a project which was a forerunner of The Sixteen and, particularly, Christ Church: a pair of LPs featuring music from the Eton Choirbook sung by the boys from the now defunct choir school of All Saints, Margaret Street, London, with the men of the Purcell Consort, conducted by Grayston Burgess. These two discs set the bar very high with an outstanding treble line and men both comfortable and capable singing early music; while this music brings the best out of The Sixteen, there is an added frisson in listening to it being sung by a choir similar in modern terms to the ensemble at Eton and elsewhere for which it was originally composed. It should be hard not to be inspired by it, and Christ Church, over the five discs, successfully emulate the achievement of their predecessors at All Saints, Margaret Street. It was a great loss when All Saints’ choir school was closed in 1968 after 125 years, but the loss is at least partially alleviated by the continuing excellence of a choir such as Christ Church, especially when it takes up some challenging repertory associated with All Saints.

As Timothy Symons tells us in his impressive booklet accompanying the discs, “The copying of the Eton Choirbook was completed at the very beginning of the 16th century”. The names of few if any of the composers are common musical knowledge, with the exceptions of Robert Fayrfax and William Cornysh. However, many heroes lived before Agamemnon (Horace, Odes 4.9.25-26) or, in this context, before Byrd. Taking two whom the centuries have treated differently, there are works by John Browne on each of the five discs, whereas only two works by Fawkyner survive. Even amongst composers the standard of whose music is never below high, Browne stands out. His glorious O Maria salvatoris mater comes at the beginning of the Eton Choirbook, and it begins disc II. The only other work in the Choirbook to approach the impact of its stunning and sumptuous opening for full choir in eight parts is Robert Wylkynson’s Salve regina (disc II) in nine. Wylkynson is sparing in using all nine at once, so that their impact is all the greater, and his passages for reduced scoring can be delicate as well as mesmerizing and eloquent. Perhaps the piece from the Choirbook that comes nearest to being a modern repertory piece is Browne’s Stabat mater (disc I), though the sublime Ave Maria by William Cornysh (disc II – by far the shortest piece in this set, and in the entire Choirbook, at 4’07; it is a shame that Christ Church use the editorial sharps for the repeated leading notes in the uppermost – alto – part at the final cadence) also has a claim. The six pieces by Browne in this set are all of the highest standard – the music for ten of his Latin works survives in the Eton Choirbook (its only source) one of which is fragmentary, and five others are listed – whereas, as we have seen, only two pieces by Fawkyner survive, both also outstanding. How is it that a composer can be so good yet so seemingly unproductive? Surely several other works by him, and by other composers represented in the Choirbook by only one or two works, must have been lost (a solution put forward in the accompanying booklet – see below), or just possibly they are lurking in a corner, or in plain sight, perhaps unattributed, waiting to be recognised, rediscovered or attributed.

Apart from the item by Cornysh already mentioned, the works in this set are all timed at over ten minutes, some of them well over, with the longest – Walter Lambe’s O Maria plena gratia the longest piece in the Choirbook – taking a gratifying twenty plus. While maintaining the highest level of performance throughout the five discs, Christ Church Choir sounds subtly different from one disc to the next – usually two years apart. Presumably Stephen Darlington did not have an unchanging ideal sound in his head to which all his singers had always to conform, but rather had an ideal standard of performance and to that end trusted the inevitably changing cast of his choristers, choral scholars and layclerks to achieve this through their natural voices, working with one another under his leadership. It was advantageous that all the recordings were made in the same spacious acoustic of the chapel at Merton College, Oxford. The mind almost boggles at the difficult passages of reduced scoring accomplished by solo trebles, passages in so many of the works which also challenge the adult singers – the opening of Kellyk’s Gaude flore virginali, trios in John Hampton’s Salve regina, duos in Fawkyner’s Gaude virgo salutata and two particularly acrobatic passages in Hacomplaynt’s Salve regina spring to mind. Darlington’s tempi can be deliberate but are never plodding; the priority is to render each part audible while it also blends with its fellows, whether it is a barnstorming full passage for half a dozen voices, or one of the intricate duos and trios. This approach also highlights the precision and accuracy with which the participants sing, whether a solo boy or pair of trebles, or men singing together in the lower reaches of their tenor, baritone or bass ranges, as in Edmund Turges’s Gaude flore virginali in which there are also some wicked harmonic twists which can sidle past the listener almost before they have had time to register!

Another most commendable achievement of this set of recordings is that it highlights music by gifted composers such as Fawkyner, Hampton, William monk of Stratford, Kellyk and Hacomplaynt who are the equivalent of the popular music industry’s one-hit wonders. Other works of theirs have surely been lost (see below), and they are only known to posterity by a work or two in the Eton Choirbook, playing second fiddle to the bigger names such as Browne, Davy, Wylkynson, Fayrfax and Cornysh. While acknowledging that this repertory is challenging to perform, it really should be better known than it is. I have heard many other pieces from the Choirbook besides those in this generously filled boxed set, and have never been other than enthralled by their impact and quality. To those unfamiliar with the idiom, expect glorious sonorities, heart-stopping moments of surprisingly modern and quirky harmonies besides some snappy dissonances, sweeping melodies, pensive passages of reduced scoring, and overwhelming climaxes of five and more voices. The music is nothing like that of its equally but differently gifted European contemporaries; it is quite simply a parallel sonic universe.

The presentation is good in a discreet way. I have a minor quibble with a lack of consistency in the material provided on the backs of the respective sleeves: the first has only timings for the listed pieces, the next two include timings plus the numbers of parts for each piece, and the last two include timings, numbers of parts and actual scorings – this latter would have been welcome throughout. The accompanying booklet contains a short introduction by Stephen Darlington and concise scholarly notes by Timothy Symons about the contents of each disc, though texts are not provided. The notes explain the importance of numerology in these works, with so many numbers being of religious significance: for instance, “The number seven has long been associated with the Virgin Mary through the devotions of her Seven Joys and Seven Sorrows.” These numbers can be applied, by themselves or in combinations, to note values, in order to provide structures for entire sections of these compositions. Also, many compositions have the melody of a particular plainchant as their cantus firmus; it is not always immediately obvious why a certain chant has been chosen by the composer but, once it has been identified, it can provide a clue as to the circumstances for which the work was composed. Seemingly the manuscripts that survive from England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries represent only about a tenth of those circulating at the time; this would in turn suggest that some shadowy composers who are now represented by only one or two excellent works could have contributed ten times that number to the contemporary sacred choral repertory, a possibility which would explain that otherwise seemingly fleeting excellence.

This project is quite simply a monument within the discography of English music and indeed of Renaissance music. I respectfully urge everyone with any sort of inclination towards the best of Western music – be it Birtwistle, Brahms, Beethoven, Bach or Byrd – to obtain this recording; Browne, for one, is fit to continue the roll-call of these composers.
RICHARD TURBET

The Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Philips
66:30
Gimell CDGIM050

These are the thirteenth and fourteenth Josquin Masses to be recorded by the Tallis Scholars and that experience certainly tells. These are marvellously confident performances with great clarity in the singing, picked up by the excellent recording made in Merton College Chapel, Oxford. There is a particularly strong sense of line which carries right through each phrase without faltering, so very important for this music, and great unanimity between the two/three singers on each line. These two four-voice Masses show a particularly striking contrast. L’Ami Boudichon is one of Josquin’s earliest masses, based on a very simple five-note bawdy song in C mode. Despite the restriction of the material, Josquin manages a continuous variety, with strong ostinato-based build-ups at the ends of movements and a strikingly optimistic mood. Composed some twenty years later, the more sombre Missa Gaudeamus shows the full panoply of Josquin’s contrapuntal devices, with lots of intricate canons. It is based on an extended plainsong in the minor-sounding Dorian mode, of which the easily-recognisable first six notes are most prominent; there is much more harmonic depth and complexity, with some beautifully-sung duets. The two Masses make an excellent pairing and this disc is certainly a very worthy addition to the group’s Josquin series. This is an essential recording of some sublime music.

Noel O’Regan

The Brabant Ensemble, conducted by Stephen Rice
Hyperion CDA68265
79’14

The French composer Antoine de Fevin was born around 1470 probably at Arras, where his father was an Alderman (although one source describes Antoine as being of Orleans), and he seems to have died by 1512, possibly late in 1511. He is therefore of that generation of Franco-Flemish polyphonists which thrived between Josquin and Palestrina. Besides the two masses which give the disc its snappy title, the programme also includes two motets: the six-part Ascendens Christus in altum and two versions of the composer’s most popular motet Sancta trinitas, Fevin’s original in four parts and an expansion into six by his younger contemporary Arnold von Bruck.

Missa Ave Maria is based on the well-known motet by Josquin. Originally published in 1515, it appeared in an accessible modern edition put out by Annie Bank of Amsterdam in 1950 (from which your reviewer sang as a callow bass in the early 1960s). While it shares music (as at the end of the Credo) and stylistic traits (passages of paired voices) with the older composer (Fevin was noted during the sixteenth century as a follower of Josquin) there are other passages such as “qui tollis peccata mundi” in the third and final Agnus which seem to point towards the fuller polyphony and structural use of sequences in all parts developed in the music of later composers such as Gombert and particularly Clemens.

Attractive individual lines and strikingly successful sonorities, including an adroit use of homophony amongst the prevailing counterpoint, are to the fore in his motet Ascendens Christus where he exploits the possibilities of his chosen six-part scoring. This is a text that cries out to be illustrated musically, and Fevin himself rises to the occasion in depicting Christ as he was lifted up, favouring us with some of the Renaissance’s most exquisite writing for upper voices in three parts, complemented by a beautiful response from the lower voices. There had been doubt about the attribution to Antoine de Fevin of this motet but a source recently discovered has confirmed it. Although some passages sound modern for circa 1500, hence the justified uncertainty about the attribution to Fevin, there are also some mediaeval turns of phrase which peg the work to the period of Fevin’s lifetime. It is also important to mention the delightful settings of alleluia which occur in both sections of this radiantly beautiful bipartite work.

Fevin’s Sancta trinitas survives in no fewer than 41 sources, according to Grove including the abovementioned version expanded into six parts by Bruck. If Ascendens Christus sounds unlike the work of a follower of Josquin, this motet, with its prominent passages of paired voices, is most Josquinian, and is no harbinger of the innovations wrought by Gombert and his ilk a few decades later. The rather sparse initial passages give way to exultant and, within the limitations of writing for four parts, luxuriant polyphony at the final “speculum”. Bruck’s additional parts seem to gild this particular lily, though it is interesting to have the two settings juxtaposed.

A greater sense of continuity prevails in the Missa Salve sancta parens than in the Missa Ave Maria and this is perhaps it is because it is based on a plainchant rather than being tied to an entire motet, especially one by a composer from the previous generation, where structurally and stylistically there was more building upon individual episodes than, as with later composers, creating a more continuous narrative. The overall impression is still Josquinian but of a work that could only have been composed by a composer on the musical road progressing beyond Josquin. This is best illustrated in, again, the Agnus, where the austerely energetic duet which makes up Agnus II is followed by a positively luxuriant concluding Agnus III, where Fevin expressively exploits repetition and sequence in all four parts to impressive effect.

If the two masses have occasional longueurs among their many felicities, and Sancta trinitas – fine work that it is – comes across as one of those pieces which had more resonance for contemporaries than perhaps it has for posterity, nevertheless Ascendens Christus is simply stunning, and rewards repeated hearings. If it is indeed by Fevin, as seems proven, he has been insulted by having its attribution to him queried; that said, it is a work that is so striking even amongst his three other distinguished pieces on this disc, that the raising of quizzical eyebrows has perhaps been forgivable. In a venue with a slightly drier acoustic than on some of their recent recordings, the Brabant Ensemble make an excellent case for Fevin.

Richard Turbet

Gallicantus, Gabriel Crouch
53:10
Signum SIG CD 520

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his CD presents the remarkable music of Lassus’ Prophetae Sibyllarum interspersed with contemporary music written in response to it with a couple of chants by Hildegard von Bingen, slightly shoe-horned into the mix, by virtue of her epithet “the Sibyll of the Rhine”. The male-voice ensemble produces a warm and beautifully polished sound, and more importantly for highly chromatic music such as Lassus writes here, they have wonderful focus and pinpoint accurate intonation. Those not familiar with this rather visionary side of Lassus will be intrigued with the daringly exploratory writing style, similar to his Lagrime di San Pietro cycle and bordering on the uniquely strange world of Gesualdo. Wisely, though, the ensemble doesn’t just rely on the strangeness of this score, but work to find the music behind the notes, producing a genuinely moving performance of some of Lassus’ most heartfelt utterances. Is a well-known fact that Lassus suffered from sometimes crippling depression, suggesting bipolarity, and this strange, otherworldly music seems to touch on some of his lowest, darkest moods as well as episodes of sublime transcendence. Resulting from a project at Princeton University which also gave rise to the contemporary compositions, this CD is evidence of an intimate understanding of this challenging music and is as fine an account of the score as has been committed to CD to date. Particular plaudits are due to the group’s wonderfully clean-voiced countertenors, David Allsopp and Mark Chambers, and to baritone, Gabriel Crouch, who charts their intelligent and expressive route through the music while also holding one of the vocal lines.

Brian Clark