«Herreweghe se...» | Crítica, para Codalario, del disco del Collegium Vocale Gent cvon música de William Byrd

Herreweghe se pone británico

El director belga nos trae un espectacular registro dedicado a la figura de William Byrd, uno de los mayores talentos de la Europa del XVI, en una visión novedosa y exquisita que nos demuestra que estamos probablemente ante el mejor coro del mundo.

Infelix ego. Música de William Byrd, Alfonso Ferrabosco y Philippe de Monte. Collegium Vocale Gent | Philippe Herreweghe. Phi, 1 CD [LPH 014], 2015. T.T.: 49:49.

   Está bien, lo confieso: me apasionan el Collegium Vocale Gent y Philippe Herreweghe. Por eso, cada nuevo disco en el que se aproximan a la polifonía del Renacimiento supone para mí todo un acontecimiento –ya lo es cuando lo hacen con Bach y el Barroco, por supuesto–. Y qué lástima que no lo hagan más a menudo. Su última incursión fue ese descomunal doble álbum dedicado a los Responsorios de Semana Santa de Carlo Gesualdo. Pero hay algo que convierte, más si cabe, a este disco en un evento de suma importancia: supone el primer acercamiento discográfico del conjunto a la figura del británico William Byrd [c. 1540-1623], que es sin duda uno de los compositores más geniales en la historia de la música europea del siglo XVI, y que si me preguntan, considero desde luego como el mejor compositor británico de la historia, así, sin ambages.

   Compositor de interesante vida, supo mantener una curiosa relación con la reina Elizabeth I, siendo él un probado y devoto católico, además de recusante del protestantismo imperante en la época, pero que merced a su talento musical y el gusto que por su obra tenía la reina caminó por la cuerda floja durante toda su vida sin caerse. Auténtico acróbata vital, Byrd vertió todos los sentimientos de desasosiego, agobio y desconsuela espiritual por lo que le tocó vivir en un corpus compositivo de auténtico genio, en la que los géneros más desarrollados fueron los motetes y la misa latina –con todo lo que ello conllevaba–.

   Precisamente una de las tres misas que compuso, su Mass for five voices, se graba aquí como pieza central. Sin duda, estas misas católicas fueron una de las grandes aportaciones de Byrd a la música del período, compuestas a tres, cuatro y cinco partes respectivamente, las cuáles pueden fecharse entre 1593 y 1595. No es posible comprender el porqué de la atención de Byrd hacia el ordinario de la misa sin observar el contexto en que fueron creadas. Es precisamente gracias a esa relación con John Petre, quien tenía su residencia en Essex muy cerca de la de Byrd, que estas misas pudieron ver la luz formando parte de las celebraciones secretas en residencias de este tipo, en las que recusantes de cierto nivel se reunían para realizar oficios católicos y en los que es muy posible se interpretasen estas misas, cuyas partes altas podían ser cantadas incluso por mujeres. Las misas carecen de nombre en su edición original, sin embargo, el nombre de William Byrd aparece en todas y cada una de las páginas, una auténtica osadía si consideramos la situación en la que se encontraba. Pero es que, además, en Inglaterra no se componía una misa desde la década de 1550, cuando Tallis escribió sus tres misas. Reinventó el estilo, comenzando por componer sobre el Kyrie, cuando tradicionalmente no se hacía en Inglaterra. Además se inspiró claramente en la música del continente, aunque las frases son menos angulosas que las que encontramos en Europa, con muchos saltos amplios e intervalos de séptima e intervalos mayores; además, el texto realmente no es fundamental en la estructura de la pieza –excepción hecha del pasaje del Credo: et unam sanctam Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam–. Aun así, encontramos referencias a las misas inglesas de la primera mitad del XVI, sobre todo con inspiración en John Taverner, aunque realmente Byrd desarrolla una escritura sencilla, en la que las frases se alejan de aquellos desarrollos inmensos de sus colegas de anteriores generaciones, utilizando este un material más sencillo y «clásico», en el que se evita la expresividad explícita. A pesar de su relativa sencillez encontramos en ellas algunos momentos gloriosos. Esta misa a cinco partes guarda algunos de los pasajes más impresionante en la producción de sus misas, como su magnífica musicalización sobre et venturi sæculi. Amen en el Credo, o el hermosísimo y subyugante comienzo del subsiguiente Sanctus, por poner únicamente un par de ejemplos, pues toda la misa es un auténtico dechado de la capacidad inmensa de Byrd para la creación polifónica que conquista el interior más sombrío del oyente.

   La otra gran obra en la que se centra la grabación es el motete Infelix ego a 5, compuesto por Byrd en 1591. Monumental motete tripartito, se trata sin duda de una de las piezas más impresionantes dentro de su género en la Europa del Renacimiento. Compuesto sobre una meditación escrita por Girolamo Savonarola sobre el Salmo 50, Byrd pone en música de manera fascinante las numerosas declaraciones retóricas y las cuestiones que el texto hace suyas, mostrando toda la gama de emociones posibles para un alama atormentada –como bien se aclara en las notas críticas del disco–.

   Se completa el disco con una serie de motetes del propio Byrd, así como de otros compositores. Abre el disco Emendemus in melius a 5, primera de las obras presentadas por Byrd en las Cantiones Sacræ de 1575, colección de 34 motetes de Byrd y Thomas Tallis, que supuso la primera colección musical impresa en Inglaterra, que supone además el comienzo el primer monopolio editorial en la historia de la música británica para ambos autores, concedido por la reina. También se graban su precioso, delicado y cas ingenuo Ave Maria a 5, así como su Christe qui lux es et dies a 5, la pieza más temprana de las aquí se graban, con una escritura muy homofónica y un estilo que algo más arcaico que puede recordarnos a las piezas escritas sobre el mismo texto por Robert White [c. 1538-1574].

   Acuden a la cita con Byrd dos autores que siempre se han relacionado de manera directa con él. Alfonso Ferrabosco [1543-1588] –primero de los dos Alfonso Ferrabosco compositores–, maestro italiano que se trasladó a la corte inglesa para servir a Elizabeth I entre 1562 y 1578, donde con total seguridad conoció a Byrd. De él se graba su Peccantem me quotidie a 5, motete luctuoso de refinada escritura y densidad contrapuntística, que delatan a un compositor bien dotado para la expresividad. El segundo de los compositores invitados es Philippe de Monte [1521-1603], compositor franco-flamenco que formó parte de la Capilla Real de Felipe II, con la que viajó en 1554 a Inglaterra para las nupcias del monarca con Mary I, y aunque no se tienen datos fehacientes de que hubiera un encuentro entre ambos en aquel momento –Byrd tenía 14 años–, sí que es sabido el posterior contacto entre ellos, al menos cuando de Monte envía a Byrd una partitura con su motete Super flumina Babylonis a 8 en 1583, ante lo que Byrd corresponde con el envío de un motete a 8 sobre el texto Quomodo cantabimus. Aquí se registra su Miserere mei a 5 –que se encuentra dentro de su Sacrarum Cantionum… liber secundus, de 1573–, y que supone un maravilloso ejemplo de la capacidad de este maestro para combinar estilos variopintos en su escritura, aunque se contiene una gran carga de la densa y emotiva polifonía franco-flamenca de la que era absoluto deudor.

   La versión que nos presentan los cantores del Collegium Vocale Gent resulta absolutamente fascinante. Se trata de una lectura que aúna lo mejor de los dos mundos más dotados para la interpretación de polifonía renacentista: el inglés y el noreuropeo [belga-holandés, cabría decir]. Así, se conjuga a cantores de ambas «escuelas», que no son sino maneras de concebir este repertorio –especialmente en cuanto al carácter aplicado a las interpretaciones y la sonoridad conseguida, más etérea en el caso de los ingleses y más terrenal en el caso de los noreuropeos–, pero con igual cuidado por la sonoridad hermosa, la afinación perfecta y el equilibrio más pulcro. Así, contando con el concurso de 12 –3 sopranos, 2 contratenores, 4 tenores y 3 bajos–, se consigue una emulsión maravillosa. Se aleja un tanto de la visión más celestial, que persigue por la expresión y la belleza por las vías  del sonido y perfección técnica de los británicos. Aquí encontramos, sin embargo, más atención y cuidado puesto en el texto, en la retórica. Acostumbrados a tratar con Johann Sebastian Bach y otros autores barrocos alemanes, los cantores del Collegium Vocale Gent llevan casi en su ADN la comprensión de la música unida al texto. Desde luego, si para la polifonía del Renacimiento esto es básico, lo es aún más para la producción de Byrd, en la que como decimos, existe una carga notoria de la expresión de sus sentimientos y acontecimientos vitales volcados en su música sacra latina.

   Esto no sería posible si no estuviera al frente de todo ellos una personalidad como la de Philippe Herreweghe. El maestro belga, alguien del que se puede decir que es director de directores, maestro de maestros, logra una excelencia interpretativa fuera de toda duda. La elección de los tempi es calmada, pero sin detenerse en exceso en las cadencias ni dar un desmesurado espacio para los ritardandi, consiguiendo así aportar el carácter preciso que cada pieza requiere. Herreweghe es sin duda un director de ensayo, de grabaciones, de los de trabajo de fondo. Quizá su gesto no dice mucho, incluso puede resultar confuso. Es entonces cuando uno comprende que su grandeza está en todo el trabajo previo a un concierto en vivo o el registro final de un registro discográfico. Su inmensidad está en la comprensión de la música, en la visualización que de ella tiene en su cabeza y en la manera en que consigue hacerla llegar a sus cantores. La elección de un cantor por parte para el Infelix ego si bien no me parece un acierto, pues se trata de música de gran densidad, que si bien es cierto requiere de extrema limpidez en la elaboración de las cinco líneas, no lo es menos que la expresividad y la densidad de su textura resulta a veces demasiado raquítica con un solo cantor por parte, a pesar de que estamos ante una lectura de primer nivel. Esta es la única mácula que puede ponerse a un disco de una calidad superlativa, que nos muestra un Byrd de exquisita sonoridad y de una carga retórica hasta ahora pocas veces escuchado.

   El álbum, decimoquinto en el cada vez más profuso catálogo del sello Phi –que él mismo Herreweghe fundara en 2010–, cuenta con la toma de sonido, edición, masterización y producción de Thomas Neubronner, de Tritonus, especialista de probada calidad en el campo de la música antigua, que si bien en esta ocasión deja introducirse algunos sonidos que resultan molestos, si bien el balance y el trabajo sonoro por lo demás resulta fantástico. Se completa con unas excelsas notas críticas firmadas por Andrew Carwood, uno de los mayores especialistas en el mundo de la obra de Byrd, no en vano, como cantor y director del conjunto The Cardinall’s Musick ha llevado a cabo una grabación integral de su obra que aún sigue en curso y que lleva la nada desdeñable cifra de 14 volúmenes editados.

   Me volveré a mojar, si para mí Byrd es el mejor compositor británico de la historia –Händel no es británico, se siente–, el Collegium Vocale Gent en el mejor coro del mundo, entendiendo como tal a aquel que consigue un mayor nivel en prácticamente todos los repertorios posibles, desde el Renacimiento hasta el siglo XX. Desde este manera de verlo y a mí entender, no tiene rival. No se pierdan, pues, este disco, pues encontrarán belleza a raudales y si conocen bien la música de Byrd, hallarán en él una visión hasta ahora desconocida, que por otro parte, le sienta como un guante.

Publicado en Codalario el 21-IV-2015.

The Choir Project al día | 29-XI-2014

William Byrd [London, c. 1540-Stondon Massey, Essex, 1623]: Kyrie | Mass for four voices.
Alamire.
Less is more.

     John Milson wrote about the Byrd's masses:
«It is hard to imagine a time when William Byrd’s Latin Masses and motets were not a cherished part of England’s musical culture. Today these works seem to soar among the pinnacles of Tudor achievement, alongside the plays of Shakespeare, Byrd’s contemporary; yet for two hundred years, from roughly the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth, they fell almost wholly from favour and use. This long neglect has nothing to do with their intrinsic quality, which has never been questioned. It is to do with the fact that they are Catholic music. Since 1558, England has been officially a Protestant nation, and Catholic culture has had to negotiate its place as best it can. Byrd’s Catholic music, composed for a suppressed minority group in the decades around 1600, was by necessity inconspicuous when it was new, and it was wholly shunned by the established church. Only in more tolerant times has it risen to the surface, to be recognized and loved for its true worth.

     This recording [new album on Hyperion Records] celebrates Byrd’s Catholic Masses in two ways simultaneously. Most obviously, it addresses great and timeless works, which themselves address great and timeless liturgical texts. But at the same time it reminds us that the revival of Byrd’s Masses in the late nineteenth century was pioneered by Roman Catholic church choirs. This is a point worth pondering. Since the accession of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558, the choirs of England’s Protestant cathedrals and college chapels have had their own distinctive musical repertory, which has flourished and grown in unbroken tradition. The anthems and services of Thomas Tallis, for instance, have never fallen from cathedral use; they have been the epitome of Choral Evensong and Eucharist for more than four centuries. This Anglican repertory, however, is not what Roman Catholic worship requires. When major Catholic choral foundations were established in late Victorian and Edwardian England, at Downside Abbey, the Brompton Oratory, and above all at Westminster Cathedral, there was a quest for new and more relevant music; and it was at these places that William Byrd’s three Latin Masses were revived. Hence the pertinence of this recording; it celebrates that Catholic revival no less than it celebrates the works themselves.

     That being said, William Byrd, if he could hear these performances, would be amazed, for they are not at all what he would have envisaged. In the 1590s, when his Masses were composed, there were no Catholic church choirs in England, and he never imagined them being sung proudly and publicly in cathedrals for all to hear. Few hard facts survive about the kinds of performances Byrd’s Catholic works received in his lifetime, but we can speculate with a fair degree of confidence. In the age of the Spanish Armada and the Gunpowder Plot, England’s Roman Catholic community celebrated Mass covertly behind closed doors, taking pains not to be found out and punished or fined. Their secret services took place in rooms hastily converted into chapels, led by priests who led surreptitious lives. If music was used, then it was sung and played by whoever came safely to hand: family members, invited guests and trusted servants. By definition, then, Byrd’s Masses are really chamber music, not choral repertory, and it was never Byrd’s intention that they should be sung in the resonant ambience of a great church by a choir such as that of Westminster Cathedral.

     Grand choral polyphony was, however, the stuff of Byrd’s main career; for he lived a double life. In public, Byrd was the towering member of Queen Elizabeth’s chapel royal, a choir that served monarch, court, and the swarm of overseas diplomats and visitors that mingled with them. This choir typically sang in the grand chapels of the queen’s palaces, such as Westminster, Greenwich and Richmond, and on occasions it also sang in more public places, even out of doors. It was for this choir, wearing his public hat as England’s foremost musician, that Byrd sang, composed and played the organ, and it was therefore with the Chapel Royal in mind that Byrd composed his Great Service, a work of the greatest splendour, setting texts from the Book of Common Prayer for use at Mattins, Eucharist and Evensong. But this was only one side of Byrd’s life. In private, he moved in the network of England’s Catholic community, whose religious beliefs he shared, and for whom he also wrote music—initially motets, but latterly also works for liturgical use, such as the three Masses and, later, the impressive cycle called Gradualia. As Byrd grew older his allegiances shifted, and he spent less time in London and more time with the Catholics in rural Essex, where he set up home. But his retreat never became a rift. Up to his death Byrd remained loyal to his queen and his country, and he was tolerated at court even by those who knew of his double life.

     Palpable differences of musical language exist between Byrd’s public music and his private. In his Great Service Byrd delivers the words like an orator. Sometimes the choir sings in chains of chords, sometimes in symmetrical blocks, sometimes with polyphonic exuberance, but always with an aloof grandeur suited to ceremony and show; the effect is never intimate or confessional. The motets and Masses, conversely, savour their words more meditatively, and speak with a more personal voice. It is these Catholic works that have won Byrd his reputation for being one of England’s most sensitive setters of words. Byrd himself claimed that, when composing, it was always the words that came first, and his vehemence emerges most clearly and powerfully in settings of those words that clearly mattered most to him. Hence the power of his three Masses; though written for undercover use by amateurs, these works engage powerfully and intensely with their words.

    The Englishness of Byrd’s Masses must also be mentioned, for these settings do not sound remotely like the Masses of Lassus or Palestrina. This is partly because of the way they were made, partly because of the way they allude to their Tudor past. Unlike most other Catholic composers of his generation, Byrd composed his three Masses freely, without directly quoting any pre-existing music. Hence the contrast with Palestrina and Lassus: those two composers habitually based their Masses on models, such as a motet or a plainchant melody, so that the Mass becomes a commentary on that model. Byrd, in contrast, simply took the words of the Mass as they came to him, and savoured them intuitively, using whatever melodies came into his head. Sometimes he makes audible allusion to the musical styles of his Tudor past, for instance through the turn of a melodic phrase or the choice of a chord or a selection of texture. By doing so, he invoked the music of his boyhood—the truly Catholic music of the reigns of Henry VIII (died 1547), and of England’s last Catholic monarch, Queen Mary (reigned 1553–8), which coincided with the years when Byrd was a boy chorister. A nostalgia for the Tudor past therefore haunts these works, especially in the Mass for four voices, which was the first to be composed.

     It is in fact possible to date the three Masses with reasonable precision. In 1589 and 1591, Byrd published two collections of motets—called by him ‘sacred songs’ (Cantiones sacrae)—that summed up his achievement to that date. Immediately after that, Byrd’s mind seems to have turned to the words of the Catholic Mass, and his three settings were published in quick succession between around 1592 and 1595. The precise years of publication are unknown, since the prints themselves have no title pages; they are simply slender pamphlets of sheet music, headed with the name ‘W. Byrd’. Careful detective work, however, shows that the Mass for four voices, which is the most intimate and intense of the settings, came first. It was followed a year later by the Mass for three voices, which is a smaller and tighter work, and then by the Mass for five voices, which is the most serene of the three. This five-voice Mass sets the tone for Byrd’s next and final project, the great cycle of Gradualia—settings of liturgical texts for the Catholic calendar from Advent to Trinity—which went to press in two volumes in 1605 and 1607.»

     This is an impressive performance by four of the greatest ensemble singers at this moment. I think it is very difficult to express more in less time and with fewer singers.
Enjoy it this wonderful performance performance at Petre's house, where probably Byrd performed this masses with a small Catholic community. Pure History, pure beauty, pure Music.

The Choir Project al día | 18-X-2014

William Byrd [c. 1540-1623]: O salutaris hostia á 4 | Gradualia ac cantiones sacrae, 3-5vv [London, 1605].
Stile Antico • Fretwork.
Rejoicing for voices and viols.

  David Skinner wrote about Byrd's Gradualia:
«As the reign of Elizabeth I symbolizes the Renaissance of English humanism and the stability of English culture, so William Byrd, in his assimilation of musical ideas past and present, represents the technical and emotional refinement of the music of the Latin church. However, we are presented here with a curious paradox, for Byrd lived at a time when music for the Latin rite was outmoded, its creation and promul­gation considered dangerous in the hothouse of Elizabethan church politics. England’s Golden Age of polyphony under the earlier Tudors could boast some of the finest composers in Europe, who had thrived within a musical tradition unbroken until the introduction of Protestant ordinances in the mid 1530s and 1540s. As a boy Byrd came to know intimately the liturgy of the pre-Reformation English church, knowledge which must have left a lasting impression on his later musical character as a recusant Catholic. (The general assumption that the composer was born in 1543 has been disproved thanks to ground-breaking scholarship of recent years. Byrd was significantly older when he died than had been previously thought, a finding which invites a complete reassessment of his life and the context of his works.) Apart from Mary I’s brief Catholic revival in the 1550s, elaborate music-making exemp­lified in the great surviving pre-Reformation choirbooks such as Eton, Lambeth and Caius was banned from all English churches, collegiate and monastic; by the end of the 1540s, and with the death of Henry VIII, Latin church music was replaced by a simplified vernacular version of the liturgy, and the English anthem and service were born.

  It has been a great concern of scholars to account for the prodigious number of Byrd’s surviving Latin works when, by Elizabeth’s own proclamations, it would have been illegal to perform them in his own time. However, Elizabeth herself was an accomplished musician who held deep Catholic sentiments and Byrd was indeed among her favourite musicians. Byrd studied under Tallis and would doubtless have been familiar with the works of a number of pre-Reformation composers such as Cornysh and Fayrfax; he probably also had regular access to his patron John Lord Lumley’s extensive collection of printed foreign editions at Nonesuch Palace from which to gain new ideas. As, then, the most promising composer England could boast it is perhaps fair to suggest that Elizabeth was quite happy to grant him unlimited freedom of musical expression. In 1575 Byrd, with Tallis, gained a monopoly on music printing in England. Elizabeth granted full privilege and licence for twenty-one years ‘to imprint any and so many as they will of set songe or songes in partes, either in English, Latine, … or other tongues that may serue for musicke either in Churche or chamber’. Byrd therefore had royal approval to compose and print what he desired without persecution. Upon Tallis’s death ten years later, Byrd retained this privilege and produced several editions of his own works.

  Byrd’s three settings of the Mass Ordinary (for three, four and five voices) are widely known and do not require substantial elaboration here. All were published in the mid 1590s, and it is generally agreed that the Mass for five voices (arguably the most beautiful of the three) was the last to be composed. It is not surprising that stylistically Byrd broke from the great tradition of pre-Reformation English Mass settings, following a fallow period of some forty years in this genre. In the Mass for five voices thematic connections between the movements rarely exist; although a head motif launches them in a similar fashion, thereafter the style is governed largely by the text, rather than developing musical ideas and cross-reference such as may be found in the Masses of Ludford and Fayrfax. Most notable are those portions of the text which prominently profess the Catholic faith, through which we might read Byrd’s own particular and profound identification. In the Credo, for example, we hear the words ‘Et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam’ boldly iterated, whereas in earlier English Mass settings the words ‘Jesu Christe’ are normally emphasized.

  Byrd’s greatest achievement in music publishing was his ambitious two-volume collection of the Gradualia, which contain settings of Mass Propers for the church year. It is not known whether these works were intended to be performed in a liturgical framework, or indeed along with any of Byrd’s own Mass settings as presented on this recording. In the political climate of the time it is unlikely that they would have been performed by the Queen’s Chapel Royal, of which Byrd was a member from 1570; this leads to the supposition that they were designed for use in the chapel of a recusant household. Such households may well have been able to maintain a choir capable of meeting the extreme technical demands of the Gradualia, but it is likely that Latin music of the time was performed by small forces—even as few as one to a part—with a female voice singing the top line. However, this does not preclude the possibility that the sound Byrd himself imagined was that of his own choir of the men and boys of the Chapel Royal, had political circumstances permitted.

  Byrd’s Propers for the Mass of Corpus Christi are published in the first book of the «Gradualia» (London, 1605), where the Magnificat antiphons O sacrum convivium and O quam suavis est are also found together with the Hymns to the Blessed Sacrament Ave verum corpus and O salutaris hostia.

  The Feast of Corpus Christi commemorates the institution and gift of the Holy Eucharist, traditionally celebrated in the Western Church on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. (In the early church this commemoration was held on its natural day in the Christian calendar, Maundy Thursday, on which the Eucharist was instituted at the Last Supper; however, in reserving this day as part of the Passion ceremonies, a new feast day was recognized in 1264 and set on the first free Thursday after Eastertide.) The texts reflect a sacrificial tone as befits the Corpus Christi celebrations, embodying the imagery of the ingestion of blood and body. As the medieval symbol of the Body of Christ illustrates, the mother Pelican’s beak penetrates her own breast, giving life-blood to benefit the hunger of her young. Ironically, Byrd chose the bright and cheerful mixolydian mode for his setting. The Introit Cibavit eos is delightfully radiant, and celebrates the biblical miracle of wheat and honey from the rock. Here the antiphon is followed by a Psalm verse (80:1) for reduced voices, and an energetic and semi-homophonic setting of the doxology (‘Gloria Patri’) with a deliberate break before the ‘Sicut erat’, quite typical in Byrd’s Introit settings. As the liturgy would dictate, the antiphon is repeated at the end of the work (although this is not directed in the printed sources).

  The Gradual Oculi omnium is a reposed petition for the blood and flesh of Christ, which is anticipated in the beautiful three-part verse ‘Aperis tu manum tuam’ with the appended Alleluia ‘Caro mea’, and finally resolved when the four-part texture resumes with vigour at the words ‘qui manducat meam carnem’. In English music of this period it is unusual to find such direct expression of the dramatic implications of the text. Throughout the Gradualia Byrd’s response is typically eloquent and powerful, from the short and simple Offertory Sacerdotes Domini (considered by many to be the gem of the Corpus Christi Mass), to the more robust and almost madrigalian setting of the Communion Quotiescunque manducabitis.

  Additional Propers for the related Votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament are printed in the second book of the Gradualia (London, 1607), which additionally contains the Processional Hymn Pange lingua gloriosi (Byrd’s setting is not included on this recording but is sung to plainchant, as is the Corpus Christi Sequence Lauda Sion salvatorem) and the Benedictus antiphon for Lauds Ego sum panis vivus. (Owing to repeated reference to the Eucharist, the Corpus Christi Mass texts are appropriate for inclusion in the Votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament.) The Tract Ab ortu solis would have been sung if the Votive Mass fell during the penitential season, and the Alleluia ‘Cognoverunt discipuli’ only in Paschal Time. However, these items are nevertheless related thematically to Byrd’s Corpus Christi Mass. The second half of the Alleluia actually restates the music of ‘Caro mea’ from the Gradual Oculi omnium, while the second part of the Tract (‘Venite, comedite’) is structurally very similar to the Introit Cibavit eos. (Several items in the «Gradualia» are repeated within the same feast or even from one feast to another, no doubt for economical considerations.)

  The lesser-known companion Hymn O salutaris hostia is also thought to be an early work. Here Byrd fully exploits his technical mastery of interlocking imitative phrases; the polyphony gradually intensifies and with the words ‘bella premunt’ climaxes with trumpet-like entries.»

  Wonderful English performance for English music.
The quality of the performers is really amazing. For me, Stile Antico is simply one of the best five vocal ensembles in the world.

  Enjoy they, enjoy William Byrd, the best English composer in history.

The Choir Project al día | 13-IX-2014

William Byrd [c. 1540-1623]: Ave verum corpus á 4 | Gradualia ac cantiones sacrae, 3–5vv [London, 1605].
Stile Antico.
Four parts to perfection.

  Philip Brett wrote about Byrd and his Gradualia:

  «William Byrd, the leading composer in Elizabethan England, appears to have retired from active life at court around 1593, his fiftieth year. He moved his family from Harlington (near the present Heathrow airport) to a village on the other side of London deep in the Essex countryside. His new home at Stondon Massey was a few miles from Ingatestone, the more private of the two Essex seats of a landed magnate named Sir John Petre, one of Byrd’s richest patrons. Like Byrd and his family, the Petres were Roman Catholics, and Ingatestone was a protected centre where the Roman liturgy could be celebrated with little interference from hostile authorities. Byrd’s move also marked the beginning of a new phase in his composition. Motets of protest and tribulation, written in an expansive and often madrigalian style, and clearly aimed at the situation of the Roman Catholic minority in England, had been characteristic of the Cantiones Sacrae of 1589 and 1591. From 1593 onwards Byrd conceived and brought to completion an ambitious plan to provide music for the Roman liturgy (and for extra-liturgical devotions) in a more concentrated, terse style that in many ways suited the requirements of the Catholic reformers, especially the Jesuits to whom he seems to have been especially close.

  The first works he completed in this characteristically thorough scheme were three settings of the Ordinary of the Mass, in three, four and five parts, published between 1593 and 1595. But the culmination came a decade later with two books of a collection entitled Gradualia and published in 1605 and 1607. The principal contents of these volumes are the Propers of the Mass (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Offertory, Communion, and sometimes the Sequence) for each of the principal feasts of the Roman Church year as well as for the votive Masses of the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Sacrament. One of the most notable features of this collection is that the texts are always those of the reformed Roman Missal of 1570. Byrd makes no attempt to rehabilitate the Sarum rite which was observed in most places in England before the Reformation and again during the reign of Mary I—even though he had paid direct tribute to England’s Catholic musical past by self-consciously making specific musical references to a Mass by John Taverner (c1495–1545) in his own four-part setting of the Ordinary. Characteristically for someone allied with the Jesuit party, however, his Gradualia eschews religious nostalgia for a rather strong dose of the militant spirit associated with Catholic reform.

  The opening fascicle of Book I, containing music for five voices, is illustrative of this militancy. It opens with twenty-five settings of Latin texts that comprise the entire material of those parts of the Roman liturgy connected with the Blessed Virgin Mary. None of the festivals associated with her (other than the Visitation and the Purification, the latter renamed as the Presentation of Our Lord), and absolutely nothing of what Protestants regarded as the idolatrous devotion surrounding her, remained in the reformed English Church. After this formidable block of pieces occur a song and two motets. The song, Adoramus te Christe, is the setting of a text associated with the worship of the Holy Cross, and the two motets, Unam petii and Plorans plorabit, reflect the spirit of the ‘political’ motets of the 1589 and 1591 collections. The text of Plorans plorabit, which refers to a ‘captive flock’ and warns of the imminent downfall of a king and queen, would surely have been regarded as treason had it not come from a genuine biblical source. The fascicle concludes, moreover, with a setting of the Propers for the feast of All Saints, the growing significance of which for English Catholics was as a commemoration of their ever-increasing number of martyrs.

  The Marian Masses that form the contents of this recording include not only the Marian Feasts generally authorised in 1605, but also the votive Masses associated with the Virgin. A votive Mass is a Mass offered for a particular intention or purpose, either on behalf of a group of people, or, as in this case, to a saint who was thought to possess special powers of entreaty at the throne of heaven. The votive Mass of the Virgin, often called ‘Lady Mass’, was traditionally offered on Saturdays and was not part of the office of the day, though its texts always reflected the progress of the church year.

The Feasts and votive Masses of the Virgin employ a revolving cycle of texts which come from a limited number of sources (Psalms 14, 23, 44 and 47, Luke chapters 1, 2 and 10, and single passages from Isaiah and Numbers). These texts recur over and over again on occasions when supplication to or celebration of the Virgin Mary transpires. In the printed Roman Graduals of the later sixteenth century, economies were made by printing each chant associated with these texts once only (usually under the heading of an important feast such as the Nativity of the Virgin), the singers being referred to the appropriate folio when they needed to sing that chant in another liturgical context.

  Byrd emulated this system from his Gradual, but was able to take it much further because, ignoring the chant, he was free to make one polyphonic setting do for any replication of text. In the opening Mass of the Purification, for instance, the Introit and Gradual require two separate chants, but because they both employ the same verses of Psalm 47 (the Gradual stopping slightly earlier than the Introit), Byrd was able to make do with one setting for both. With characteristic doggedness, Byrd followed this scheme to its logical conclusion. In so doing he created ‘motets’ like Diffusa est gratia (22) that are a collection of verses never performed exactly as they stand on any single liturgical occasion. Gaudeamus omnes, which follows it, is the head of the ‘Assumption Introit’ joined unceremoniously to the rump of the Alleluia for that feast. And inevitably the composer made some mistakes, leaving out a phrase here (as in the Offertory of the Purification), reversing the order of a set of verses there (as in Alleluia, Ave Maria, Alleluia, Virga Iesse, whose verses are the wrong way round for the Eastertide votive Mass, one of the two occasions they serve).

  The wonder is that Byrd managed to pull off this cut-and-paste scheme at all. For what it entailed musically was the writing of twenty-five pieces, many of them extensive, in the same mode and with the same voice ranges. It also entailed striving for a certain unity of expressive effect—not of course because of any anachronistic ideals of musical organization but simply to observe liturgical decorum, a quality which Byrd’s intimate, low-keyed and ultimately rewarding polyphony admirably reflects. This music has a restrained but intense devotional spirit for which parallels are hard to find. It repays frequent and attentive hearings.

  These twenty-five pieces, then, contain the music for Mass at eight feasts of the Church (including one with a Vigil—Mass celebrated the day before—and two with Octaves—Masses celebrated during the week terminating with the eighth day after the feast), and for the five different seasons of Lady Mass. Of these Byrd acknowledged only four feasts and two (or possibly three) votive Masses in the headings he distributed somewhat laconically throughout the publication. The feasts (in the order of the print) are those of the Purification (2 February), the Nativity of the Virgin (8 September), the Annunciation (25 March), and the Assumption (15 August). The votive Masses are those of Advent and ‘post Nativitatem Domini’ (i.e. after Christmas) with a cryptic and incorrect reference to the season after Septuagesima Sunday. The Nativity’s Propers were also sung on the Feasts of the Visitation (2 July) and the Conception (8 December). The Feasts of the Dedication of Our Lady of the Snow (5 August) and of the Presentation (21 November) derive their Mass Propers from the votive Mass of the season (although Venetian Graduals from which Byrd worked assign to the Presentation the Propers of the Nativity). These were the only Marian occasions generally authorized by the Roman Missal in 1605; Catholics familiar with the Missal immediately before Vatican II will be surprised by the modesty of the late sixteenth-century liturgy of the Virgin compared with its later, more prodigal manifestations.

  Byrd’s rubrics are as laconic as his liturgical headings, and a good deal less frequent, but they confirm the nature of this cryptic scheme. Following it through and singing it feast by feast and Lady Mass by Lady Mass would entail enormous repetition, especially of such perennial texts as the verse ‘Eructavit cor meum’. With the aid of technology we are fortunately able to preserve Byrd’s order and to do our own cutting and pasting at the controls of the compact-disc player.

The system is particularly advantageous to modern listeners because it puts them in a position comparable to that of contemporary users of Byrd’s publication. By those for whom the liturgy means nothing (and there were contemporary Anglican music lovers who presumably enjoyed these pieces as ‘Latin songs’ without scrutinizing them for liturgical function), the music can be heard in its printed order with no repetition. The care Byrd took to shape the pieces (ending settings of the Gradual verse, for instance, with a full-voiced alleluia, even though that alleluia belongs, liturgically speaking, to its own subsequent verse) is an indication that he was concerned about his numbers as individual pieces of music, observing an aesthetic decorum which governed all his actions.

Those who do care about liturgical occasion, or who wish to explore the ideal scheme that lurked behind Byrd’s cryptic presentation, have the ability with the track guide to realize any aspect of the scheme in a way comparable to that available to a contemporary Roman Catholic extremely well versed in the 1570 Missal. It could be argued that the repetition of the Introit after the psalm verse and doxology ought to have been obligatory, but that would have meant another disc and the impossibility of easily exploring the more ingenious and out-of-the-way aspects of Byrd’s transfer scheme. As it is, the interested student of Byrd may compare the effect of the Nativity and Advent votive Mass Propers with or without the alleluias which occur with them in the print but which belong only to Paschal time (between Easter and Pentecost); and such portmanteau numbers as Diffusa est gratia can be distributed into their correct liturgical allocations instead of being heard as a lump.

  For those who tend to regard Gradualia (or any other historical document) as unambiguously intended and to interpret it accordingly, history has preserved a suitably enigmatic piece of evidence. Among contemporary manuscripts which contain pieces from Gradualia, one (and only one) is given over largely to a copy of the contents of the first book. It comes from the household of a Roman Catholic squire of north Norfolk, Edward Paston (1550–1630). By a supreme stroke of historical irony it includes among its many pieces no single set of Propers: there is always one piece missing, and of course this missing link can indicate a variety of explanations. But it is clear that even among the circles in which Byrd was most likely to be appreciated (I have argued elsewhere that Byrd wrote songs celebrating events in Paston’s family life), the understanding of his grand design may well have been less complete or more complicated than we can now appreciate.

  It is fortunate that we can recapture an ideal form of that design today, and follow through the many permutations of the material in this kaleidoscopic collection of pieces. We will perhaps acknowledge, while doing so, the extraordinary courage it must have taken to publish the book at all during a time when, as it turned out during the fateful events of 5 November 1605, simply being Roman Catholic was itself grounds for suspicion of treason and sedition. In the aftermath of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, a man from Cambrai named Charles de Ligny was arrested at an inn near the Tower of London and thrown into Newgate prison ‘on account of certain papistical books written by William Byrd, and dedicated to the Seigneur Henry Houardo (Howard), Earl of Northampton’, which were found on him, i.e. the partbooks of the first book of Gradualia. It is possible that the book was hurriedly withdrawn or recalled—only one copy of the original edition survives. But as early as 1607 Byrd could publish a second book of the collection, and in 1610 he managed to reissue both books with a fresh imprint. It is difficult to assess the true impact on an illustrious citizen of the effect of religious persecution and political coercion during an age as far distant as Jacobean England, but Byrd’s dogged pursuit of his Roman Catholic faith and of his grand musical design is a special illustration from those difficult times of the power of the human spirit and the intensity of the artistic endeavour that it can engender.»

  In words of David Skinner:

 «Perhaps the most popular and widely performed of all Byrd’s compositions is the exquisitely understated Ave verum corpus. Written in G dorian against the mixolydian Propers it is an almost unique example of modal mismatch in the Gradualia. As befits Byrd’s earlier devotional motets for penitence Ave verum corpus contains intense homophonic statements coupled with lucid counterpoint (most notably at the plea ‘miserere mei’), which suggests that the work may significantly predate its publication. The lesser-known companion Hymn O salutaris hostia is also thought to be an early work. Here Byrd fully exploits his technical mastery of interlocking imitative phrases; the polyphony gradually intensifies and with the words ‘bella premunt’ climaxes with trumpet-like entries.»

  At last, Peter Phillips said:

  «Finally we come to a composition from the 1605 Gradualia, a set of liturgical settings which were amongst the last things Byrd wrote. The famous hymn to the Blessed Sacrament, customarily sung as a Communion motet, Ave verum corpus, has the same intensity of expression as the Mass for four voices, though its compositional style is even more direct. Here he took a leaf out of the Protestants’ book and set the words in chords, so that they may be heard. True, they are in Latin, but every Catholic knew the meaning of this text. The only slight elaboration in the music is at the words ‘miserere mei’, where there is some simple imitation between the voices and a beautiful semitonal clash in the harmony.

  The music on this disc has shown that Byrd was capable both of great complexity and great simplicity; but for many people there is enough power in the Ave verum corpus for them to need nothing more.»

  This is a fantastic live performance by Stile Antico, recorded in concert at the Wigmore Hall on 30th May 2013 and later broadcast by Sky Arts. Their sonority is simply exquisite. Stile Antico is for me one of the best five vocal ensembles in the world. Renaissance polyphony is simply stunning in their voices and versions. Here, elegance, delicacy, expression and an impressive and an impressive and deep knowledge of the characteristics of the particular language of Byrd's compositions.

One of the best pieces in Western Music History in voices of one of the best ensembles in this moment.

  Absolute paradise!

Salve... [crítica en Codalario del último disco de Stile Antico]

Salve Britania

Stile Antico nos presentan un homenaje absolutamente deslumbrante de algunas de las piezas más destacadas de la era Tudor.

The Phoenix Rising. Stile Antico. Harmonia Mundi, 2013. TT. 74’34. Obras de William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Thomas Morley, Orlando Gibbons, Robert White y John Taverner.

 
  Tengo que admitirlo: me fascina Stile Antico. He seguido su carrera desde el comienzo, cuando allá por 2007 saliese al mercado su primer disco, titulado Music for Compline, en el que se grababan algunas de las piezas más bellas del repertorio polifónico inglés del Renacimiento. Por aquel entonces, la frescura y calidad interpretativa de unas voces, cuya media de edad rondaba los 22-23 años, me dejó absolutamente fascinado y atónito. Alguien fue lo suficientemente inteligente en Harmonia Mundi –Production USA– para darse cuenta de que estábamos ante un grupo que supondría el futuro en este tipo de repertorio. Sus pronósticos se cumplieron. Han ido paso a paso, trabajando duro, y los éxitos cosechados han sido innumerables. Premios, conciertos por doquier, giras internacionales, alabanzas de público y crítica. Una carrera sólida en apenas siete años.

  El volumen de grabaciones es, además, intenso. Salen a disco por año. Este que presentamos aquí –octavo en su discografía– corresponde a este 2013. Un título sugerente y evocador, The Phoenix Rising, y un epígrafe, The Carnegie UK Trust & the revival of Tudor church music, absolutamente clarificador, que esconden algunas de las verdaderas joyas de la corona de la producción polifónica que en la Inglaterra del XVI nos legaran algunos de los más grandes maestros. Pongámonos, no obstante, en antecedentes. El Carnegie United Kingdom Trust es una sociedad de beneficencia que se creó con el fin de atender ciertas necesidades que la población de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda tenía en su momento. Cumple este 2013 el centenario de su fundación y toma el nombre de quien lo ideó, el escocés Andrew Carnegie, uno de los mayores filántropos de los siglos XIX y XX en Gran Bretaña. Pues hete aquí que dicha sociedad trabajó para la difusión de la polifonía inglesa de una manera absolutamente fundamental. Llevó a cabo la publicación de la Tudor Church Music [TCM], una colección en diez volúmenes –editada y publicada entre 1922 y 1929– que recogía algunas de las piezas más destacadas de la producción polifónica británica del XVI. Estos diez volúmenes se acompañaron de unas ediciones individuales, que recibían el nombre de octavo, y que pretendían ser utilizadas por los diversos y excelentes coro británicos para su interpretación. A pesar de algunos problemas en sus comienzos, estas ediciones supusieron un auténtico éxito, al menos si nos paramos a pensar en las apabullantes cifras: la edición del Ave verum corpus a 4 de William Byrd –publicada en 1922– había vendido 16.629 copias tan solo en 1930. De esta manera, esta TCM propulsada por el Carnegie UK Trust supuso un avance sin precedentes en la difusión de esta música, a la que debemos gran parte de la pasión que hoy día genera. Es comprensible, pues, que Stile Antico rindan un sentido homenaje a dicha edición y fundación, pues ellos mismos –como otras tantos grupos británicos– no tendrían sentido sin la existencia de ambas.

  La piedra angular sobre la que se construye todo el disco en la Mass for five voices, de William Byrd [c. 1540-1623], que es, sin duda, una de las grandes misas de todo el Renacimiento europeo. En ella, al igual que en sus otras dos misas –como destacan algunos autores– podemos encontrar un homenaje de Byrd a las misas de John Taverner, en este caso concreto a la célebre Missa Gloria tibi trinitas. Resulta maravillosa la forma tan pictórica en que el maestro inglés trata las palabras del texto y el delicado balance que consigue en el tratamiento de las cinco voces, un juego de contraste entre momentos de pocas líneas con otros pasajes de potencia sonora en las cinco partes; un verdadero guiño al estilo «arcaizante» anterior a la Reforma. Maravillosos algunos momentos especialmente, como la impresionante cadencia final sobre el amen del Credo o el Agnus Dei en su totalidad. También de Byrd es su Ave verum corpus a 4, uno de los motetes más destacados e interpretados hoy día de todo el XVI europeo. De una belleza desgarradora, sabe poner en música el dolor de la cristianos ante la muerte de Cristo y la veneración por su figura, pero prestando especial atención a la figura de este como hijo de la Virgen María –lo cual supone un problema en cuanto al tratamiento de la intercesión de esta en la figura de Cristo, una de las diferencias básicas entre el Anglicanismo y el Catolicismo. Fascinantes algunos de los acordes sobre palabras destacadas como ave, corpus, Virgine…, y la repetición desde el miserere hasta el final de la pieza, para destacar, más si cabe, la figura de la Virgen como madre de Dios –recordemos que Byrd era un recusante convencido del Anglicanismo, y que a pesar de la situación en la que se encontraba el país en lo religioso, supo mantener su credo y hacerse con la benevolencia de Elizabeth I gracias a su inmenso talento como compositor.

  Thomas Tallis [c. 1505-1585] –maestro del anterior– aparece representado en dos ocasiones. Primeramente con su impresionante Salvator mundi [I] a 5, una pieza en la que se observa su maestría en el manejo de la imitación y su talento para la creación de melodías absolutamente deslumbrantes. Le sigue In ieunio et fletu a 5 –al igual que la otra pieza, publicada en su Cantiones, quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur de 1575–, en la que se detiene más en el elemento armónico, destacando especialmente las líneas más graves, de sonoridad potente y expresiva.

  Orlando Gibbons [1583-1625] también está representado con sendas piezas, ambas completamente en inglés –únicos ejemplos del disco–, perfectos ejemplos del tratamiento del género Anthem en este país. Almighty and everlasting God a 4 y O clap your hands together a 8 –esta última es una de las piezas más célebres de su autor, destacando especialmente por el  carácter rítmico que subraya el texto jubiloso.

  Otro de los compositores representados por partida doble es Robert White [c. 1538-1574], uno de los que más se ha puesto en valor en los últimos años. Del mismo se registran aquí las lecturas de Portio mea a 5 y su Christe qui lux es et dies a 5 [IV], ambas de una belleza melódica prodigiosa, representantes del estilo más sosegado y menos «virtuoso» en la escritura. En la primera de ellas destaca el contraste entre los momentos plenos de sonidos con otros en el que participan únicamente dos o tres de las partes. En la segunda, las partes de polifonía se contraponen a algunas partes de los versos en canto llano, como era habitual para este tipo de textos dedicados a las «completas».

  Thomas Morley [1557-1602] nos trae una pieza realmente singular: Nolo mortem peccatoris a 4, que tiende un puente entre el género sacro y el profano, con dos versos introductorios en latín, a los que le siguen cinco en lengua vernácula –a la manera de Anthem–, que apareció, de hecho, en una fuente de música profana.

  El encargado de cerrar el disco es nada que John Taverner [c. 1490-1545], otro de los grandes maestros del XVI en Gran Bretaña. Su O splendor gloriæ a 5 es un ejemplo del gusto de este compositor por las antífonas votivas y las piezas de larga duración. Maravilloso el manejo de las texturas, consigue crear un auténtico entramado polifónico de intrincada majestuosidad que contrasta con momentos de vacío armónico aparente, en el que el desarrollo polifónico es casi puramente horizontal.

  Las versiones de las jóvenes voces de Stile Antico son, en todo punto, referenciales. El carácter está siempre enfocado a destacar el aspecto más expresivo, no únicamente técnico; y el color, equilibrio y afinación son irreprochables. La perfección se roza en prácticamente la totalidad del registro. La inteligibilidad de las líneas es asombrosamente meridiana. Lo que más sorprende de la visión de estos catorce cantores es lo cálido de las mismas. Mucho se ha achacado a los ensembles británicos lo alejados que están en ocasiones del aspecto expresivo en aras de la perfección técnica y estilística. En Stile Antico tenemos esa técnica apabullante, pero también un sentido de cercanía, de espiritualidad terrenal, que parecen ofrecernos la mano a su paso.

  Todas las líneas son impecables, dignas de alabanza y auténticos ejemplos para cualquiera que se dedique a esto. Lo de las hermanas Ashby –Helen y Kate– es de asustar en la línea de sopranos –impecable el sonido en el registro agudo y la facilidad en la línea de canto–, que se completa con la exquisita voz de Rebecca Hickey. Las altos –una de las peculiaridades de este conjunto es que no utiliza contratenores– son siempre deslumbrantes y poderosas, conformando una cuerda compacta y firme –a las «históricas» Emma Ashby y Eleanor Harries se une el fichaje de Katie Schofield. Los tenores, ejemplo del sonido británico para esta cuerda, destacan por su bello timbre y el gusto para acometer los registros más agudos; siendo los culpables: Jim Clements, Andrew Griffiths y Benedict Hymas. La sonoridad de los bajos es también particular en este conjunto; los bajos británicos pueden resultar a veces poco elegantes, demasiado directos y potentes en la emisión, sin embargo, Will Dawes, Timothy Murphy y Matthew O’Donovan son siempre elegantes, buscando una vocalidad amable pero siempre presente, que mantiene la estructura de todo el conjunto.

  Ya lo dije en su momento, Stile Antico no tienen actualmente nada que envidiar a cualquiera de los grandes grupos del mundo especializados en polifonía renacentista. Están entre los primeros, logrando siempre la excelencia. Son el futuro, pero también el presente. Tienen la enorme ventaja de haber permanecido unidos desde el principio, de componer una estructura sólida, firme, inquebrantable, en las que apenas ha habido algún cambio desde su fundación. Y eso se nota, vaya si se nota.

  Se completa el disco con una bellísima presentación por parte del equipo de Harmonia Mundi, y unas interesantes, aunque escuetas, notas críticas, firmadas por Matthew O´Donovan, uno de los bajos del conjunto. 

  Ya fue uno de los «ocho esenciales de la música antigua» que en su día recomendé para el anuario de Codalario, así que no se pierdan este disco. No escucharán un sonido tan hermoso interpretado por cantores tan jóvenes en ninguna otra parte, al menos de momento.

Publicado en Codalario el 11-XII-2013.