Luca Scandali (Graziadio Antegnati organ 1565)
79:59
Brilliant Classics 95259
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Graziadio Antegnati 1565 organ in the Basilica of Santa Barbara, Mantua, survives largely intact in its original configuration. Designed for Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga and his organist-composer Girolamo Cavazzoni, it has nine ripieno stops, two flutes and a fiffaro, as well as two sets of split keys in each octave. It was also designed to fit the acoustics of the basilica, something captured well on this recording, from the arresting organo pieno used for the opening Padavano toccata to the lighter-registered canzonas by Pellegrini. Neither composer was associated with Mantua – Padavano worked mainly in Venice and Pellegrini in Milan – but their music was certainly written with instruments of this kind in mind. Padavano’s four surviving toccatas (one attributed) are based largely on slow-moving harmonies decorated by quick figurations, with some imitative sections. His two ricercars are complex contrapuntal constructions. Published in 1604, all are quite serious pieces demanding concentrated listening. It works well to break them up, as here, with groups of Pellegrini’s sectional canzonas published in 1599 which show a lighter idiom and some fine inspiration. Scandali uses the canzonas effectively to demonstrate the variety of registrations possible on the organ. Overall this is an excellent match of instrument and repertoire, and a convincing demonstration of this highly significant organ’s possibilities.
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Rossoporpora, Walter Testolin dir
79:30
Arcana A 449
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]nce in a while – rather more rarely than some would have us believe – a truly exceptional recording comes along, a recording of such musical merit and artistic quality that it stops us in our tracks. This is such a CD. It represents a debut for the Italian vocal ensemble Rossoporpora, which has perhaps unwisely chosen to call itself by the same name as an Italian underwear firm (if you want to see what I mean, google it). For their programme they have turned to Luca Marenzio, arguably the greatest of all ‘pure’ madrigal composers.
Marenzio’s extensive output is dominated by his secular works, in particular no fewer than 18 books of madrigals for five or six voices, published in Venice between 1580 and 1599, the year of his death. A single book of four-part madrigals appeared in Rome in 1585. A dozen of these books are represented on the present CD, performed in roughly chronological order, excellent planning that allows us to follow Marenzio’s development as a composer. Such evolution is concerned more with emotional weight and substance than with significant stylistic change, for Marenzio showed little inclination to break the mould of the unaccompanied polyphonic madrigal in the manner Monteverdi would do so dramatically just a few years later. Neither, despite his contribution to the famous 1589 Florentine wedding intermedio, did Marenzio show any interest in the emergence of the revolutionary stile recitativo.
It is customary to divide Marenzio’s madrigal output into two distinctive phases. The first, characterised by an easy grace, mellifluous elegance and ‘sweetness’ was widely praised by his contemporaries both in Italy and further afield. It was what won him his reputation throughout Europe. The second, heralded by the composer himself as being composed ‘in a quite different manner from the past, tending […] towards – I shall say – a sorrowful gravity’, is the ‘crudo (cruel) stile’ of the present disc’s title. This was marked, starting with the seminal Madrigali a 4, 5 et 6 voci of 1588, by a new concentration on serious texts by the great Italian poets of the past, above all the peerless sonnets of Petrarch. This division serves as a handy reference, but is also simplistic, as the CD shows, for as well as beguiling examples of Marenzio’s earlier style such as ‘Come inanti de l’alba’, with its ravishing ethereal opening, the dissonant pain of pieces such as ‘Dolorosi martir’ (from the 5-part Madrigals, Book 1 of 1580) plumb depths of emotion as searing as do such great Petrarchan madrigals as ‘Solo e pensoso’ or ‘Crudele, acerba’.
As suggested at the outset the performances are outstanding, indeed they are near-exemplary on both technical and interpretative grounds. The seven voices of Rossoporpora, all excellent in their own right, blend beautifully in whatever combination they are employed, being superbly balanced in contrapuntal writing, while perfectly chorded in the homophonic passages with which the composer so skilfully employs contrast. The realisation of the texts, so acutely understood and set by Marenzio, is achieved with a complete understanding of both musical and literary syntax perhaps only achievable fully in this repertoire by singing in one’s native language. Neither are the performances frightened of employing tempo fluctuations to expressive means, which to my mind pays big dividends in a long text like ‘Cruda Amarilli’ (from Guarini’s Il pastor fido). But these are performances not to analyse, but rather to admire, to savour, to delight in, to share exquisite suffering in.
A couple of practical points. Two of the madrigals are performed in intabulations for two lutes, common practice at the time with popular pieces, while two others are given by solo voices and two lutes. Less successful is the addition of the two lutes to ‘Non vidi’, one of the 4vv madrigals, since they distract attention from the vocal polyphony. The loss of a star from ‘overall presentation’ is accounted for by booklet text of a size that would severely test the eyes of even an owl. But there can be no doubting that this is now unquestionably the finest available recording of a selection of Marenzio madrigals. It is, in a single word, magnificent.
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Keyboard Music from Renaissance Poland
Corina Marti Renaissance harpsichord
74:25
Brilliant Classics 95556
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his tablature is a significant source of music for the keyboard from the first half of the 16th century. According to the accompanying booklet, it contains 230 pieces of music, two theoretical treatises, and over 250 musical examples “with a didactic purpose”. The music, the majority of which remains anonymous, is mainly in the form of dances, preludes and intabulations of vocal works by European composers such as Josquin, Ribera, Senfl, Sermisy, Brumel and Walter, as featured on this disc, plus several others.
The succession of 39 short pieces in 74 minutes does not make for a riveting listen. The dances and preludes range from the charming to the uninteresting, and the intabulations of the vocal works can seem fussy or stilted compared with the originals, and no more than opportunities for the arranger and/or the performer simply to show off without adding anything.
Nevertheless, Corina Marti makes the best case that she can for every piece, and has evidently taken care over her interpretation of each one. It is a pleasure to listen to her modern “Renaissance” harpsichord after an anonymous Neapolitan model circa 1520, the beautiful sound of which compounds the excellence of her execution of these slight works. And it is also important that recordings such as these are made: beside their value as archival documents, they let us hear what keyboard repertory was being played at a certain time, in a certain place. They also alert us to the existence of these instrumental versions of certain vocal works, and the extent to which they were circulated – a matter of great interest when considering the reception of their composers’ works.
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Nigel North lute, Les Voix humaines consort of viols
59:03
ATMA Classique ACD2 2761
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his recent addition to the Lachrimae discography does not contain all the pieces in the original publication of 1604. Instead, the programme is built around the seven pavans titled “Lachrimae …” with alternative versions of the Lachrimae pieces themselves, works from other Dowland sources, some for lute solo, one for lute and bass viol. Besides the seven Lachrimae themselves the disc includes Captain [Digorie] Piper his galliard, The Earl of Essex galliard, M. Henry Noel his galliard, M. John Langtons pavan, M. George Whitehead his almand, and Sir John Souch his galliard from 1604, thereby omitting Semper Dowland semper dolens, M. Nicholas Gryffyth his galliard, M. Giles Hobies galliard, Sir Henry Umpton’s funeral, Mistress Nichols almand, M. Buctons galliard, M. Thomas Collier his galliard, and The King of Denmarks galliard. The single imported piece unrelated to the Lachrimae is Dowland’s adew for Master Oliver Cromwell (from The second book of songs or ayres, 1600), a pavan which is the work for lute and bass viol mentioned above. This Oliver Cromwell was the Lord Protector’s uncle.
So much for the contents, what of the performances? Nigel North needs no introduction, nor should Les Voix humaines, the Canadian viol consort. Both names guarantee excellence, so an assessment comes down to their interpretations of these familiar and frequently recorded works, with a nod to their choice of contents. (Obviously, anyone wanting a complete performance of the Lachrimae need not consider buying this record, albeit they should be interested to hear some or all of it. Recordings which include the entire contents of the 1604 print can be found on the Presto Classical website – www.prestoclassical.co.uk/classical/composers, then click on Dowland – where their listing is often accompanied by judicious quotes from informed reviews.) The versions of the Lachrimae pavans on this disc come across as reverential, occasionally a tad indulgent, with a tendency to lean into cadences, and to give the impression of the players standing back and admiring the sheer beauty of Dowland’s music and their execution of it. Quite rightly too. The sleevenotes are at best introductory, and thin on detail regarding the individual pieces and the performers’ attitudes to them. Between them, Les Voix humaines and Nigel North wring just about everything out of the pavans, but whereas individual parts come through strongly in the pavans, the balance is not always so good in the pieces played more briskly – or indeed, less slowly.
This is a most attractive selection of Dowland’s consort music. Each of the pavans sounds absolutely gorgeous. The performances of some of the other items, like the Cromwell pavan, can seem pensive, close to navel-gazing. Nevertheless, for interpretations of the seven Lachrimae pavans that milk their sublime contents for all that they are worth, these are ideal performances, and the judiciously selected fillers give the listener time to digest the full implications of one pavan before another one begins, a more recuperative option than presenting them in sequence. This disc did not yield all its qualities in one initial hearing, but sufficient seeds were sewn to make return visits increasingly pleasurable and rewarding.
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Airs, cantates & madrigaux
Les solistes du jardin des voix 2015, Les Arts Florissants, William Christie
74:41
harmonia mundi HAF 8905283
Music by Banchieri, Cimarosa, Handel, Haydn, Sarro, Stradella, Vecchi, Vivaldi & de Wert
[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ecorded in 2015 and released in 2017, this is the showcase concert from Les Arts Florissants’s 7th ‘Le Jardin des Voix’ project, an intensive period of training/rehearsal for singers on the threshold of their careers. It was a staged ‘divertimento’ and recorded live, which explains a few places where the musical elements are not perfectly balanced within the soundscape. There are also ‘noises off’, some of which are the audience clearly enjoying a great evening’s entertainment. I absolutely take my hat off to the deviser of the programme which moves more or less chronologically from Wert to Haydn (via Stradella, Vivaldi, Handel and others), gives all six singers ‘stand out’ as well as ensemble moments and has a sense of narrative flow. Not all the music from the concert is on the CD (one of the essays – Fr/Ger/Eng – refers to music which we do not hear), but it’s still coherent and action-packed. Get this, complement and compliment it with a glass of your favourite and enjoy! I’d have loved a DVD.
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Maria Luisa Baldassari spinet, clavichord, harpsichord, clavicymbalum, organ
57:44
Tactus TC 480101
[dropcap]I[/dropcap] have to say that the music on this disc did little for me, though I do think I’d have enjoyed it more had I known the vocal originals here elaborated by ‘scales, thrills [sic] and passing notes’. But historically this music is highly significant – the first keyboard music ever to be printed. Its presentation is also thoughtful with sensitive playing on five instruments: spinet (modern copy, 1571 original); fretted clavichord (ditto, 1475); clavicembalum (ditto, 1450); harpsichord (ditto, 1697); and organ (original, 1533). All use ¼ comma mean-tone tuning except the clavichord which is Pythagorean. So organologically it’s all fascinating. Though the English ‘translation’ is rather a trial, the essay is interesting on the composer/arranger, the techniques he uses and the arrangements’ general context and purpose.
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Etienne Baillot, Anne-Marie Blondel, Jean-Luc Ho
68:23
Son an ero 10
Music by Aguilera de Heredia, Baptista, Bruna, Cabanilles, de Cabezón, Carrera, Chirol, Correa de Arauxo, Mudarra, de Seixas & anon
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is the stuff of organists’ and organ builders’ dreams. A historic organ (1768, Castillian in style) is discovered more or less complete, if dismantled and imperfectly stored. Its owners cannot afford restoration and subsequent maintenance but the instrument finds both salvation and a new life in a neighbouring country. This disc displays its colours to good effect in a very well chosen selection of 16th-18th-century Iberian music (and four very short contemporary pieces which are beyond EMR’s remit). All three players are sympathetic to the instrument’s qualities, use appropriate articulation and ornamentation and enjoy their opportunities, not least those slightly eye-watering moments afforded by the mean-tone temperament. I found this rather ‘niche’ issue very enjoyable and will seek out several of the pieces for my own repertoire. The booklet (Fr/Eng – essay only also in Spanish and Basque) tells us what we need to know and details of the registrations used can be found online.
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[dropcap]O[/dropcap]f many surprising features of the summer of 2018, few have excelled the strange experience of travelling from a parched, sun-scorched Britain basking in (or suffering from) an extreme heat-wave to the lush green of the equally sun-blessed woods and rolling hills of the Périgord vert, the most northern region of the Dordogne. It is there that the Itinéraire Baroque festival founded 17 summers ago by Ton Koopman takes place in the villages and hamlets of the area, invariably utilising the many Romanesque churches that adorn the Périgord vert.
The programme for my third visit to Itinéraire Baroque (my account of the 2016 festival can also be found on this site) had Spanish culture as an overarching theme, although no Spanish music featured in the opening concert on 26 July at the Romanesque (although much altered) abbey church of St Cybard in Cercles. Given by members of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under Koopman, it did, however, adhere to what was virtually a subtext of the festival – music for exotic instruments or unusual instrumental combinations. Thus this concert included concertos by Telemann for oboe d’amore and two chalumeaux, by Gregor Werner (Haydn’s predecessor at Esterhazy) for two organs and two chalumeaux and a concerto for trombone by Albrechtsberger, the Classical style of which stood in stark contrast to the surrounding Baroque repertoire. In addition, the pleasingly light-voiced tenor Tilman Lichdi sang a folk-like strophic song of Werner and an undistinguished extract from one of his oratorios. Neither tested him to anything like the same extent as Bach’s Cantata No.55 ‘Ich armer Mensch’, where technical fallibilities were at times cruelly exposed. Nonetheless, the concert made for an enjoyable start to the festival, especially in the well-played Telemann concertos and Alessandro Marcello’s well-known Oboe Concerto in D minor.
St Cybard is very much ‘home base’ of the Festival, its delightful linden- shaded square filled during its course by ‘Café baroque’, where food, drink and stalls selling local bio produce are located. Such facilities proved much in demand at the lunchtime concert the following day, played by the chamber ensemble L’Astrée, who with soprano Julia Wischiewski gave a programme of Vivaldi trio sonatas and chamber cantatas. The instrumental part of the concert provided for me the most satisfying music making of the festival, with vital, well-articulated playing by violinist Paola Nervi and cellist Rebecca Ferri in quicker movements and truly eloquent playing in slower movements such as the exquisite Sarabanda of the Sonata in D minor, RV27, where the interplay between the two was totally engaging. I much liked, too, the tasteful ornamentation added to repeats. Despite some expressive singing and confident execution of passaggi, the cantatas were less satisfying. Wischiewski’s soprano was too often unevenly produced, her diction less than clear, while her ornamentation was often waywardly unstylish.
Following an afternoon devoted to a lecture on Spanish Baroque music and a concert devoted to music and dances in period costume from Spain and southern France – neither of which I attended – the evening concert found Koopman and his wife (and former pupil) Tini Mathot giving a recital for two organs and two harpsichords entitled ‘The Master and his Pupil’. Thus we heard music by, among others, J. S. Bach (the Prelude and Fugue in C, BWV 547, curiously played on harpsichords rather than organ) and W. F. Bach (a solo Concerto in F), Armand-Lous Couperin, who was taught by his father Nicholas, one of the great Couperin dynasty, and Antonio Soler, the most famous pupil of Alessandro Scarlatti. It was Soler who provided the meat of the programme, in quantity, if not substance, too much of his music being inconsequential, at times to a degree of banality. Both here and in organ works by Cabanilles and Perez de Albeniz the portative organs used by Mathot and Koopman were a monochrome substitute for the colourfully exotic sound of Spanish organs of the period.
The Saturday of the festival gives it its name and (to the best of my knowledge) unique feature, the day consisting of staggered visits to six venues, in most cases a small rural church of Romanesque origin. At each of these a short concert – preceded by a brief introduction to the building – is given by performers who remain in the same location for the day. It however started in the town church of Mareuil, where before being divided for the tour a large audience assembled to hear a selection of solo recorder music from Jacob van Eyck’s ‘Der fluyten lustof’ (well played by Reine-Marie Verhagen), music with which I confidently expect to be punished for all eternity should I end up in one of the circles of Dante’s Hell. Our first stop was the little church at Graulges, Romanesque at heart, but much restored. Judging from reaction I heard, the concert of 17th-century Italian and Dutch sonatas played by the gifted Ensemble Clematis was probably the most popular of the day. To me, however, it was a further depressing example of how young players still ignore the difference between all-purpose period instrument string playing and the special demands of 17th-century music. This applies especially to an ensemble like Clematis that specializes in this repertoire, when it can only be viewed as the lazy option that is to be deplored.
If this was a disappointment, the following event in the beautiful little chapel of St John the Baptist in the village of Puyrénier came as a pleasant surprise. Here Fred Jacobs, one of the doyens of the lute world, played a beguiling recital of works by Sor (mostly) and Giuliani on a Romantic guitar built in 1820. This is not repertoire I have explored in any depth, but here was struck by the sheer inventiveness of Sor in particular and the beauty of tone Jacobs produced throughout, especially in more contemplative pieces like the Cantabile, op 42/1.
Following a lunch break, the first of the afternoon concerts took as back to the outskirts of Mareuil and the church Saint Sulpice, where the Swiss ensemble Albori Musical played works by Vivaldi and Telemann and a sonata by Pierre Prowo formerly attributed to Telemann. Moderately accomplished playing failed to disguise the fact that the rhythmically four-square and often somewhat inexpressive performances rarely caught fire.
There was nothing inexpressive about the penultimate visit to the charming simplicity of the little church of Connezac, once the chapel of the eponymous chateau. Within its intimate surroundings the Austrian dulcimer player Franziska Fleischanderl illustrated with captivating charm its capabilities both in her playing and introductions. Particularly interesting was the great difference in sonority dependent on whether the instrument is plucked or struck with hammers, while the range of subtly modulated sound that can be cajoled from it in the hands of an obvious expert was strongly projected.
The final concert took place en plein air alongside the walls of the largely 15th-century Chateau D’Aucors. Given by Dutch group Camerata Trajectina, it introduced a programme based around the 16th-century struggle of the Netherlands to free itself from Spanish domination. Much more interesting historically than musically – it included a number of what we would today term protest songs – it was entertainingly projected by the experienced Heike Meppelink (soprano) and Nico van der Meel (tenor).
An early flight the following morning determined that I missed the final concert, a typical Koopman mix of Bach Orchestral Suites and Brandenburgs. But once again Itinéraire Baroque, with its loyal and enthusiastic audience playing a full part, had proved a captivating experience that can be enthusiastically recommended to anyone seeking an unusual musical holiday in one of the most beguiling parts of the Dordogne. https://www.itinerairebaroque.com/
Richard Egarr harpsichord
62:59
Linn Records CKD518
[dropcap]T[dropcap]he versatile musician Richard Egarr contributes to what is something of a succession of distinguished recordings devoted to keyboard music by Byrd. Only Pavana Lachrymae and the Praeludium and Fancie overlap with the selection on Colin Tilney’s choice of Byrd which I reviewed only recently for EMR. The disc under review here is another well-chosen anthology, wandering slightly further off piste than Tilney in including the exquisite pavan and galliard pair in A minor, BK 16. Here, the good news is that, notwithstanding Egarr’s assertion in his booklet notes that the attribution is insecure, on the contrary the attribution is as safe as it can be for a piece from this period that does not survive in a source directly connected to the composer: both independent sources give Byrd as the composer, and Egarr seems simply to have misinterpreted a passage in an article by David Schulenberg (“The keyboard works of William Byrd, Musica disciplina 47 (1993): 99-121, esp. p. 103); or, he has relied upon the first edition of Alan Brown’s William Byrd: keyboard music (1969) which was published before Robert Pacey’s discovery of the second independent corroborative source (1985) duly noted by Brown in subsequent editions (1985 revised reprint of 2nd ed.; 3rd ed., 1999). That said, Egarr delivers a fine rendition of this exquisite piece, highlighting the poignant opening strain of the pavan and the songlike opening strain of the galliard, epitomizing his performances of most of the rest of the contents of this disc.
Indeed, it is clear from reading his notes that this recording is a labour of love for Richard Egarr. He has already recorded the complete works for harpsichord by Louis Couperin, the French composer most worthy of being named in the same sentence as Byrd. On this occasion he has not sought to emulate Davitt Moroney again, but has focused on a dozen or so works by Byrd that seem to have particular resonances for him.
That said, it is perhaps just as well that he has limited himself to the one disc. Throughout the seven discs of Moroney’s boxed set, there are no quirky interpretations, besides an occasional flourish and the error of judgment over the choice of organ for most of the third disc; even here his interpretations manage usually to transcend the acoustic and other obstacles. Egarr’s disc is one of the best of its type, and comfortably takes its place among the stream of such recent distinguished recordings mentioned at the beginning of this review, but it is bookended by two distinctly quirky interpretations, a quirkiness which, if reproduced proportionally over the course of a boxed set containing over a hundred pieces, might well become irksome.
The first pair of pieces is the Prelude and Fantasia in a, BK 12-13. I would put the Fantasia forward as the first indisputable masterpiece of European keyboard music. Byrd’s control over his almost riotous creativity is remarkable, with a succession of polyphony, homophony, varied tempi, sometimes almost anarchic rhythm, memorable melody and striking harmony are all rolled into a work that can be melancholy and buoyant with everything in between. How to approach such a work? Some performers rely simply on the note values and time signatures; others roll with them and respond in ways that are at best subtle but that can seem exaggerated. At first I felt that Egarr had overdone his response and entered the realm of exaggeration. Listening again after having heard the rest of the disc, I felt that it is perhaps more an expression of sheer enthusiasm, responding to Byrd’s own creativity; if after the first hearing I felt something like exhaustion, after the second I felt something more like stimulation. Egarr certainly sets out his stall here. On a less subjective note, he observes the repeat at bars 58-61 from the presumably authoritative source copied by Byrd’s pupil Tomkins; this is not given by Francis Tregian in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.
Thereafter matters become more grounded. This is an appalling pun as, after another Prelude, BK 1, Egarr plays two of Byrd’s “short” Grounds, BK 9 and 43. These are given performances whose lyricism belies the stark titles. It would be interesting to ponder the point in discographical history at which interpretations of this sort of work ceased suggesting that you might not like this sort of work but it is good for you, and started to proclaim the wonders of works which might have dull titles but were conversely beautiful. The conclusion of BK 9 is quite exquisite in Egarr’s hands.
And, speaking of dull titles, they do not come more dull than Ut re mi fa sol la and Ut mi re. Yet the former is one of Byrd’s most radiant pieces, with the latter tagging along not far behind. Original sources make it clear that the second piece should be played immediately after the first, making for a substantial musical edifice. Although Moroney’s performance of Ut re mi fa sol la on the organ is one of the triumphs of his boxed set – and indeed of the entire Byrd discography, notwithstanding the unwise choice of instrument and acoustic – Egarr coaxes his harpsichord to come as close as the instrument can to emulating what can be achieved on the organ by a gifted player. Undeterred by the constraints of his cantus firmus, Byrd produces a work as full of vitality as the Fantasia BK 13, and Egarr maintains an irresistible momentum through Byrd’s rhythmic and metrical adventures, revealing with clarity his counterpoint even in passages low in the registers such as at bars 48-49 while giving due dramatic emphasis to the sudden change from major to minor at bar 75. Egarr also gives the lie to Oliver Neighbour’s dismissal of Ut mi re which is admittedly not as fine a piece as its partner, but nonetheless has much to offer.
It is also a pleasure to welcome the Fantasia BK 62, Byrd’s longest essay in the genre, which seemingly made some impact in its day as both Peter Philips and Pierre Cornet subsequently used the same initial theme for their own fantasias. Egarr’s sympathetic but not indulgent treatment of the Pavana Lachrymae reflects Byrd’s own evident admiration for Dowland’s piece – one has only to listen to the passionate scalar passages in the final strain – and after another Prelude, BK 24, Egarr leads us through the sunny Fancie: for my ladye nevell treating the normally triumphal concluding phrase with something like poignancy or nostalgia. Perhaps the rising scale with which the fantasia begins was taken by Byrd from similar passages in his motet Descendit de coelis (second book of Cantiones sacrae 1591, the year copying of My Ladye Nevells Booke was completed) at the word “lux” in bars 66-73.
And so to the final item, The Bells, Byrd’s incredible edifice built upon a ground of two notes. This is a very personal reading by Egarr – he says in the booklet that it is the piece that turned him on to Byrd – yet ironically it is the one where he veers most away from what Byrd has written. Perhaps Egarr is emulating the sound of some actual modern bellringers whom he has heard, imitating their technique by adding extra notes to Byrd’s surviving texts, and not always doing so flatteringly, as in one passage where the parts seem – deliberately, one assumes – to get out of time with one another. It is a passionate and committed performance, one where the performer deserves to be indulged.
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Music of the Elizabethan Avant Garde from Add. MS 31390
LeStrange Viols
66:22
Olde Focus FCR912
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n 2015 the excellent LeStrange Viols, from New York, placed us all in their debt with a fine debut disc of rewarding music composed by the neglected but estimable William Cranford (FCR905). Now they compound our debt by offering this selection from a manuscript in the British Library which is one of the most important of Elizabethan musical sources.
Why open the disc with the premiere on disc of In aeternum? It is a neglected work by the similarly neglected William Mundy, which survives only in this source, one of several with a Latin title but no text (like his O mater mundi recorded by Hesperion XX) so it could be an instrumental fantasia or a choral motet. So why the sudden prominence? Probably because LeStrange Viols want listeners to discover that this is a work of surpassing beauty, and they play it accordingly. This is followed by the famous, or perhaps infamous, In nomine by the otherwise unknown Picforth. It is his only known work, but even his Christian name has not survived. Each of the five parts plays a single unchanging rhythmic value different from all other parts, yet this literally timeless work hangs together convincingly and mesmerizingly, sounding in many places like a cross between the famous Lento of Howard Skempton and the studies for player piano by Conlon Nancarrow. In other recordings the “alto” part, which is in triple time and gives rise to more syncopations that the rest, is not always audible under the more active “treble”, but here the LeStranges play every part except the cantus firmus itself pizzicato. This could emerge as a mere gimmick, but it successfully points up what Picforth is up to here, and although it sacrifices some of the sonorousness of his part- writing, it achieves a scintillating clarity. Other interpretations are available.
Altogether there are 26 pieces on this recording, but before moving on to summarize the rest of the contents, I will mention the third work, partly to emphasize that the disc gets off to such a stunning start. This is John Taverner’s Quemadmodum, another work with a Latin title but for which no text survives in any source. Like Mundy’s In aeternum it has been editorially fitted out in more than one edition with a convincing Latin text for vocal performance. If it is indeed by Taverner, it must be a late work judging by its stylistic debt to the Franco-Flemish school, and whether instrumental or vocal, it is one of the composer’s finest, and one of the best works of the Tudor period. Previous recordings by viols have all failed to do justice to Taverner’s wonderfully expressive part-writing in relation to the sonorities that he creates, but LeStrange’s interpretation is on a level with the best of those choral versions recorded by Contrapunctus, Magnificat and the Taverner Choir. The descending phrase that begins its second part “Sitivit anima mea” seems to have been borrowed by Byrd to begin the second part “Eheu mihi” of his eight-part psalm setting Ad Dominum cum tribularer.
I want to digress here briefly to discuss the attribution of Quemadmodum to Taverner, in the light of the work’s proximity on this disc to Mundy’s In aeternum and their being in the same manuscript. There are many similarities between the two pieces, the most striking being the recurrence in both pieces, especially in In aeternum, of the short phrase a b c a (at whichever pitch, the second note sometimes flattened, the third sometimes sharp, though obviously not in the same phrase) which often proceeds again to b, hence a b c a b. Doubts have been expressed over the attribution of Quemadmodum to Taverner, not least by Hugh Benham in his book about the composer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003, p. 249) who notes that one source (WB MCG) attributes it to Tye. It is in fact anonymous in 31390 itself. This leaves two other sources, in both of which it is attributed to Taverner (Benham, p. 57). Mundy’s In aeternum survives only in 31390. Other pieces by Mundy and works by Tye also appear in 31390, as well as the original In nomine, here correctly attributed to Taverner and with a fifth part added. Quemadmodum which as we have seen is anonymous in 31390, is Taverner’s most uncharacteristic work, if it is indeed by him. Tye is an even less likely composer, and nobody yet has proposed Mundy, but Quemadmodum seems a little too old-fashioned to be by the same composer as In aeternum. Perhaps Mundy, younger by three decades, was impressed by Quemadmodum – a cutting edge composition by English standards if by Taverner – and was inspired to incorporate some of its features, particularly melodies and sonorities, into his own work, while still imposing his own more modern stamp upon the latter.
The rest of the disc consists of either mainstream consort works, such as In nomines (highlights are the two pieces in seven parts by Parsons, the first of which has an alternative but discredited attribution to Byrd), and textless pieces that are known, or presumed, to have been composed for voices. One of the many charms of this disc is that several of the composers, like Picforth, are quite obscure, yet their music is most enjoyable. Edward Blankes, Clement Woodcock, Nicholas Strogers, Osbert Parsley, Mallorie and Brewster all receive their well-deserved day in the sun with some delightful consort music, and there are also appearances by prominent European composers such as Clemens, Croce, Wilder (albeit he was based in England) and Janequin, besides the less familiar Flemish composer Jacquet de Berchem – not to be confused with the now better-known older French contemporary Jacquet of Mantua. The majority of the Europeans’ works represented here are instrumental versions of songs.
It remains to mention three motets by major English composers which survive with their Latin texts but which appear in 31390 in an ostensibly instrumental garb. Sheppard’s Dum transisset a6 is a Respond of surpassing beauty. The repeats are not included, neither is the intervening plainsong, but this still makes for a satisfying musical entity. Byrd is represented by two pieces. His first In nomine in five parts (an attribution to Mundy in one source is scored out) might originally have been composed for only four, with a fifth added possibly by the composer himself. The performance here is strikingly rustic compared with the urbanity of Fretwork’s version on their complete recording of Byrd’s consort music; interestingly Phantasm eschew the work altogether both on their own complete recording, and on their earlier disc which Byrd shares with Richard Mico, perhaps favouring the deleted attribution to Mundy. O salutaris hostia is by a country mile Byrd’s – and indeed most other Tudor composers’ – most discordant piece, as the young musician – perhaps playfully, perhaps satirically, certainly determinedly – bulldozes a three-part canon through the work. More peacefully, Tallis’s O sacrum convivium is the most familiar of such pieces on the recording, but still disconcerting in this version not just for the ironed-out word-setting, but for some strikingly different accidentals, both present and absent in 31390, compared with the more familiar vocal version from his Cantiones sacrae published jointly with Byrd in 1575.
LeStrange Viols’ performances are all that one could desire. This really is a delightful disc from beginning to end – the exuberant Me li Bavari by Croce. Tempi are judicious, and balance such that all the parts can be heard clearly in both the prevailing polyphony and in the more occasional homophony. Nearly all the viols played are from the Caldwell Collection of Viols (in Oberlin, OH), instruments of the 16-18th centuries from England, Germany, France and Brabant. This recording is easy to obtain on the internet, and well worth purchasing.
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