The Choir Project al día [05-VIII-2013]

Cristóbal de Morales [c. 1500-1553]: Magnificat primi toni à 4.
The Brabant Ensemble - Stephen Rice.
Spaniard Magnificat.

  Stephen Rice wrote about Morales' Magnificat:
"Writing in 1555, the Spanish theorist Juan Bermudo thus picked out the three leading musicians of his generation, born at or just before the turn of the sixteenth century. All three were known throughout Europe: the two Flemings, Adrian Willaert and Nicolas Gombert, were active at the basilica of St Mark in Venice and the court of Emperor Charles V respectively; Morales had spent a decade as a tenor singer in the Sistine Chapel choir before returning to his native Spain in 1545. In the remaining eight years of his life he had been chapel master at the primatial cathedral of Toledo, attached to the court of the Duke of Arcos, and finally maestro at the cathedral of Málaga. He was the first Spanish composer to achieve true international fame, and was described by Bermudo as the ‘light of Spain in music’.

  Partly as a result of the celebrity derived during his Roman sojourn, Morales has in modern times been the most widely acknowledged and performed composer of the mid-sixteenth century. His style would appear to have been influential on the youthful Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina; although Palestrina’s tenure as a singer in the Sistine Chapel began only after Morales’s death, the latter’s music was certainly in the repertoire of the Cappella Giulia (the choir of St Peter’s Basilica, which unlike the Sistine Chapel choir was largely staffed by native Italians and of which Palestrina was magister cantorum between 1551 and 1555). The dissemination of Morales’s music was extremely wide by the standards of his generation, his motets appearing in over thirty prints from 1535 to around 1570, as well as many manuscript collections.

  Morales’s output runs to over 220 works, of which all but a handful are sacred. Like most of his contemporaries, the motet is the dominant genre; twenty-three Masses are securely attributed to him, as compared with approximately 150 motets. Although Morales is relatively well represented in recordings, a few pieces have attracted the attention of performers at the expense of the majority of his output. This recording aims to begin filling that gap by presenting works which are so far underexposed, yet which are of high quality.

  The longest piece on the disc is the Magnificat primi toni, one of a set of eight covering the eight tones which Morales published in 1542. The Sistine Chapel choir, for whom they were presumably written, sang all twelve verses (including the Gloria Patri) of the canticle polyphonically, unlike the vast majority of cathedral and court establishments whose practice was to alternate plainsong and polyphonic verses. Indeed, Morales’s set of eight settings was later published in the more common format, with the odd and even verses separated. This, too, is the form in which the pieces are transmitted in the modern complete edition. Whilst it is by no means incorrect to perform these settings in alternatim form, as no doubt they would have been sung at many institutions, the overall musical sense is more coherent when they are heard complete: this is the first such recording of any of the settings. Despite the lack of plainsong verses, the chant melody is never absent from Morales’s Magnificats, being used in various ways in different verses. Most frequently it is heard as a lightly embellished cantus firmus, often in the tenor but elsewhere as well; at other times the melodic material is employed in imitation. The texture is for the most part four-voice, reducing to three upper voices for Et misericordia (‘And his mercy is upon them that fear him’) and three lower for Deposuit potentes (‘He has put down the mighty’). After a vigorous triple-time Gloria Patri the texture is expanded to six voices for the final verse, with one soprano and one alto taking the chant melody in canon at the lower fourth."

  In my opinion this Magnificat is simply superb; an fantastic example in the treatment of this type of work in Hispanic polyphony.
This isn't the best album recorded by this ensemble, anyway this is a good recording, dedicated to this wonderful Spaniard master. Highly recommended.

• Album.
• Score:
  - Odd verses in polyphony.
  - Even verses in polyphony.
• Performer. 

 

The Choir Project al día [04-V-2013]

Anonymous: Purgator criminum à 3.
Gothic Voices - Christopher Page.
English and French medieval Polyphony.

   Christopher Page wrote about this album:
"'And on that day, as I have been assured, the King of England, a lance in his hand, rode down the whole length of our army, and none of our men did come forth to challenge him.
Bohadin'.

   This is how Richard the Lion Heart taunted the Saracens at Jaffa in the month of August, 1192. Our witness is Bohadin, an Islamic chronicler who had every reason to speak ill of Richard or to pass silently over his many acts of bravery. Nonetheless, Bohadin can do neither of these things. Eight centuries later, his words reveal that the legend of Richard the Lion Heart rests upon a firm basis of truth. Arrogant, selfish and cold he may have been, but there is no doubt that Richard was one of the most courageous and indefatigable kings that England has ever known.

   Early in the month of November, 1187, Richard heard the news that was to change his life. He was at Tours when he learned how the forces of Islam had achieved a great victory at the Horns of Hattin some fourteen miles north-east of Nazareth. The details were terrible to hear, for the relic of the Holy Cross had been snatched from Christian hands. Furthermore, the gains of the First Crusade now lay in ruins; the Latin King of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan, had been captured by a sultan whose very name was a challenge to a French tongue: Salahadinus—the indomitable Saladin. The news had come in the evening; by the next morning Richard had ‘taken the cross’ from Archbishop Bartholomew and vowed to embark on what was to become the Third Crusade. A year and a half passed by as the host was made ready, and then, on 6 July 1189, Richard’s tempestuous father, Henry II, died at Chinon. Richard crossed the channel to England, paused at Winchester, and then proceeded to London where, on 3 September, he was crowned as Richard I in Westminster Abbey. Before he set foot in the land ‘where the King of Glory had trod’, Richard became a king himself.

   During Richard’s lifetime the principal forms of secular court music were the conductus and the chanson. A conductus was an accentual Latin poem set to music for one, two, three or even four voices. The number of parts in a conductus governs not only its sound but also its style in performance, for the addition of voices usually increases the drive and aggressiveness of the work. When there is only one voice, as in Anglia, planctus itera, the singer is free to give the piece a spacious, even a rhapsodic character, especially when the setting is a melismatic one as is the case here. The style of Anglia, planctus itera, a lament for the death of Richard’s brother Geoffrey, Count of Brittany (d1186), shows that melismas (where many notes are provided for one syllable) were felt to raise the tone of a monophonic composition, helping to produce a High Style appropriate to an elegy with a royal subject. In this instance the composer increases the prominence of the melismas by allowing some words to pass in succession with only one note per syllable. A striking example is provided by Mors in te sevit aspere in the first verse.

   When there are two parts in a conductus, however, which must of course be synchronized, the music enters the realm of musica mensurabilis and therefore works in a different way. A strict rhythmic discipline and stylistic restraint are necessary to project the highly regulated and often somewhat austere nature of pieces such as Sol sub nube latuit, In occasu sideris and Pange melos lacrimosum. A performance of these works requires not only the scrupulous measurement of time described by medieval music theorists (mensura), but also the prudent and noble restraint celebrated by contemporary poets in French (mesure). A quality of high seriousness is essential to at least the two-part conducti of English origin like those mentioned above, and it would be misleading to describe these pieces (or any other pieces on this record) as ‘declamatory’ if that word implies a dramatic and demonstrative response to the meaning of the text. For twelfth-century musicians the relationship between words and music was an essentially temperate one, and the finished work had a lapidary quality, cool to the touch.

   With a three-part conductus like Novus miles sequitur the situation changes once again. Since the three parts share many of their melodic and rhythmic figures the texture has a repetitive quality, even an exhilarating monotony, demanding a tempo that seems almost pressed in its determination to move the piece forward. The three-voice conducti Hac in anni ianua and Purgator criminum also show how a three-part texture creates a powerful forward movement. In a four-part work like Mundus vergens, the friction between the parts becomes intense.

   Throughout the period covered by this record (c1170– c1200), the conductus was the principal form of ceremonial music. The texts of conducti were invariably in Latin, and the form therefore possessed a distinctly learned ethos. It was one that contemporaries associated with the High-Style poetic imagery of lamentation (falling stars, the sun in eclipse) and of celebration (the Golden Age, the springtime of peace, and so on).

   In the last decades of the twelfth century a subtle art of love song developed in north-east France. It is now customary to refer to the composers of these songs as the trouvères, although the term trouvère meant a poet of any kind in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The summit of the trouvères’ art, the chanson, was a love song in as many as five stanzas, whose text was usually a reflection upon the fortunes of loving. Among the distinguished trouvères of Richard’s day were Gace Brulé‚ (who had associations with Richard’s brother Geoffrey, Count of Brittany), Chastelain de Couci, and the trouvère whose name had already entered the Richard legend by the thirteenth century, Blondel.

  The chanson and the conductus were related in various ways. Indeed they sometimes shared the same material. The melody of Blondel’s chanson L’amours dont sui espris forms the lowest voice of the conductus Purgator criminum, and the music of Blondel’s Ma joie me semont forms one of the parts of the "conductus" "Ver pacis apperit". The challenge facing the composer of a polyphonic conductus was to devise two, three or even four melodies which possessed the shapeliness of free-standing songs but which produced an exhilarating result when sung simultaneously. The overlap between the chanson repertoire and the conductus indicates the importance of the melodic element in the contemporary judgement of conductus style. As if to emphasize the melodic aspect of their art, the composers of two-part conducti often begin their settings with the musical form A–B–A–B which is found in the first four lines of so many trouvère songs (including all the examples recorded here). It was part of the contrapuntal art of the conductus, however, to use this A–B–A–B pattern in just one of the parts; the second part, freely composed, was then able to vary the counterpoint. In Sol sub nube latuit, for example, the music of the first four poetic lines, as they are sung by one voice, has the form A–B–A–B, but the other voice is free, relating to the first A–B of its fellow in a suave and consonant way but deliberately establishing a series of stressed fourths and dissonances over the second B. In the first verse of the poem this can be heard on the words Summi patris filius.

   The chansons recorded here reveal something of the subtlety of the trouvères’ art of melody. The songs by Blondel, especially L’amours dont sui espris, have a light and airy quality arising from Blondel’s decision to use poetic lines of only six syllables each. Since one musical phrase in a trouvère song (as in a conductus) is almost always equivalent to one complete poetic line, Blondel’s poetic brevity gives his melodies a delightful clarity. (In some pieces, however, the equation between the poetic line and the musical phrase is subverted, and to exhilarating effect; this happens in the third verse of Etas auri reditur, where the complex enjambement of the poetry shapes the musical phrases in an unusual way.) In contrast to Blondel’s two songs, Gace Brulé’s A la douçour de la bele seson, represents the grand manner of the trouvères. This time the lines form grandiloquent decasyllables and the melody is much larger than in Blondel’s songs; in performance, it takes longer for the listener to bring the melody into focus and to locate its points of tension and release. This process of discovery is an important part of the aesthetic experience that a trouvère song provides.

   These chansons and conducti would have been sung in a variety of courtly contexts. The term ‘courtly’ can be interpreted widely, for it embraces any place where the superior members of a household, be it lay or ecclesiastical, were gathered together. The entourage of a bishop with its staff of notaries and other clergy, swelled by clerical visitors going about the business of the diocese, and perhaps a few lay persons of consequence, seems a likely audience for much of this music, and in this case the ‘court’ could be anything from an official episcopal residence to a small town house or hostelry commandeered by the bishop’s household on its travels.

   Like Vetus abit littera, this conductus for Christmas season dsiplays the deep disdain for the Jews and the Jewish religion which was a constant and destructive force in the civilisations of Western Christendom throughout the twelfth adn thirteenth centuries. The coronation of Richard I on Septiember 3 1189 produced a torretn of anti-semitic feeling in England with terrifying results. On that day, on an subsequent days, the Jews of England formed a "ludea misera" indeed."

   This album is really great, with on of the best medival piece composed in Great Britain.
Gothic Voices and Chris Page are probably the leading experts in this repertoire, as demonstrated in his extensive discography for Hyperion Records.
Fantastic performance and singers for a fantastic pieces, with large compositional quality and rarely performed. Well done!

• Album.
• Performer.

The Choir Project al día [16-II-2013]

Francisco de Peñalosa [c.1470-1528]: Ave vervm corpvs a 4.
Pro Cantione Antiqua - Bruno Turner.
A small gem from Renaissance Spain [Homage to pioneers].

   Bruno Turner wrotes about Pañelosa:
"'Among the singers in our chapel on solemn occasions is our beloved son, Francisco de Peñalosa … musician extraordinary (who) displays such exquisite art … that we fervently desire his continuing presence.' Pope Leo X, 4 November 1517 (in a letter to the Cathedral Chapter of Seville)

   Under strong Flemish influence, Spanish composers of real quality and pronounced character emerged at the end of the fifteenth century, associated with the royal chapels of Ferdinand and Isabella and with the choirs of the great cathedrals, notably Toledo and Seville. Francisco de Peñalosa shares pre-eminence with some fine contemporaries such as the Basque Juan de Anchieta, the Portuguese Pedro de Escobar and the dramatist and secular composer Juan del Encina. This was a period when increasing numbers of Spaniards were recruited to the Papal Choir, many, but not all, being notable falsettists.

   Peñalosa was born probably in 1470 and almost certainly at Talavera de la Reina, near Madrid. The earliest document referring to him is dated 11 May 1498 when he was accepted as a singer in the chapel of Ferdinand V of Aragon; in 1511 he was appointed maestro de capilla in the household of Ferdinand’s grandson. He became associated with the Cathedral of Seville by the gift of a ‘benefice canonry’. But this was to cause intermittent trouble due to long absences to which the Seville Chapter objected, despite even the Pope’s requests for tolerance of a prolonged period in Rome. Peñalosa certainly visited Seville in 1516 after Ferdinand’s death, but was in Rome from 1517 until 1525 when he returned to Seville. There he was at last in residence and actually became Cathedral Treasurer, a position held until his death. He lies buried close to Guerrero in the Cathedral’s chapel of La Virgen de la Antigua. An inscription reads:

Here lies the very illustrious Francisco de Peñalosa, Archdeacon of Carmona and canon of this cathedral  church, who died on April 1st 1528.

   None of Peñalosa’s music survives in Roman sources and most is preserved in Hispanic or Portuguese manuscripts; the majority of works can be found in books that can be associated with the Aragonese royal chapel. It is reasonable to suppose that the considerable body of his music—six Masses, six Magnificats, sets of Lamentations, various Mass movements, Office hymns and a variety of motets—dates mainly from an active composing period of some twenty years in Aragonese court circles.

   Cristóbal de Villalón, writing in 1539, claimed that not only did Peñalosa’s skill exceed that of Apollo, the ‘inventor of music’, but also that of the celebrated Josquin Desprez (d1521). Tess Knighton has remarked that, although such arguments are hardly impartial in themselves, it was indeed Peñalosa, of all the Spanish composers of his generation, who came closest to Josquin’s style and technique. Peñalosa’s motet Sancta mater istud agas was accepted as Josquin’s until recently. This brings us to a problem which must be faced.

   Peñalosa’s motets are counted as twenty-two up to thirty in number by various authorities in different works of scholarship and in reference books. The surviving manuscripts, mainly kept now in Tarazona, Toledo, Barcelona and Coimbra have a considerable number of conflicting attributions or none at all. The modern Spanish edition (Opera Omnia, Vol 1, Madrid, 1986) gives credit to Peñalosa for all the motets that have any attribution or other likelihood of being his. Thus he is given Brumel’s Mater Patris, Compère’s O bone Jesu and Anchieta’s Domine Jesu Christe, qui hora diei ultima. A doctoral dissertation by Jane Hardie (University of Michigan, 1983) makes the number of motets twenty-seven. The Mapa Mundi editions by Tess Knighton and Martyn Imrie (1988 and 1990) have been more critical of attributions and of internal stylistic evidence. Thus the present recording offers twenty-two motets of which a very few may still be doubtful. With some regret, the often attributed Memorare piissima is omitted because Knighton, Imrie and Turner are all convinced it is by Escobar. The twenty-two certainly stand as a convincing testimony to the personality and subjectivity projected by a composer of character and one possessed of experimental techniques. These mark him as influenced by the French and Flemish, notably Josquin, but with an undoubted distinction of his own.

   These motets—some with liturgical texts (for instance Pater noster and Ave Regina), others devotional like Adoro te, extra-liturgical funerary, such as Versa est in luctum, ‘over-the-top’ late medieval hyperbole (O Domina sanctissima), exaggerated bloodiness (Precor te)—all twenty-two of them, have not a note of lively rejoicing. Yet, within each, even the very few that are a little dull and awkward, there is a tremendous variety. The textures and sonority, the mixtures of sharp declamation, soft slow chords and soaring melismas are varied endlessly and mixed from piece to piece and often within an individual motet. Many are based on plainchant melodies, sometimes paraphrased or even literally quoted in one voice, sometimes fragmentarily or by motivic allusion; a few are freely composed. Always, expression is sought rather than contrapuntal wizardry.

   The final motet in this recording (Transeunte Domino Jesu), a conflation of Gospel narratives, uses one utterly simple melodic scrap to extraordinarily expressive effect, repeated in a most un-mechanical way. The masterly Versa est in luctum exploits harmony and melody so that one voice or another dominates momentarily with what seem like heartfelt outpourings of grief. A century before Victoria’s or Lobo’s versions this funeral motet is full of that strange mixture of dignity and passion that glows through Spanish church music in the works of Morales, Guerrero and the hundreds who are less known.

   The light and delicate touch which Peñalosa brings to his Marian/Song of Songs miniatures in three voice parts is deft in airy polyphony with flowing lines. In contrast, Ave verum corpus is entirely composed in plain chordal blocks.

   Some of Peñalosa’s motets are settings of familiar liturgical texts or prayers, but many are of a type that was to be largely condemned and swept away in the tide of reform ordained by the mid-sixteenth-century Council of Trent. The rather gory dwelling upon the details of the Passion will strike those who know the English (vernacular) pre-Reformation Passion carols such as Woefully arrayed (Cornysh and Browne), noting the similarity to Peñalosa’s Precor te, Domine.

  Great numbers of devotional books—horae, Books of Hours—were produced cheaply and widely distributed at the end of the fifteenth century in Spain. They were devoted to Marian, Eucharistic and Penitential subjects. The recently canonized (1482) St Bonaventura (d1274) was an enormous influence throughout Europe with his extravagant and subjective writings which included his Officium de Passione Domini. The scene at the foot of the Cross haunted the imagination of Christians in Peñalosa’s time.

   This recording is an anthology, and it is recommended that it is sampled rather than always heard end to end. We have only ordered the works so as to give a variety of voice combinations and of subjects—Penitential, Eucharistic-devotional, Marian, Christ’s Passion, and so on—in groups. It is more than worthwhile, actually essential, to read the texts and translations at least once when getting to know these extraordinary pieces.

   As to performance, we should be wary of dogmatic pretentions to an ‘authentic’ solution. Ideally, one would like to have some of the motets performed with a few boy choristers above the tenors and basses and others by a choir with several voices to each part. Instrumental involvement in music such as this was certainly known in Spain. But the one certain and most frequent medium for the rendition of this music was the skilled group of adult male singers, often with one voice to a part.

   In presenting this corpus of motets by Spain’s greatest composer of sacred music around 1500, we, the producers and editors of his music for this recording, hope to have revealed a hidden treasure of great value.

  Thanks are due to Tess Knighton and Martyn Imrie for their editions and for derivations from their introductions which I have absorbed into the notes. Those who have been involved are also deeply grateful to Professor Robert Stevenson, whose inspiration and immense knowledge have always been at the back of all their efforts in promoting Peñalosa’s music. His book Spanish Music in the Age of Columbus (The Hague, 1960, repr. 1964) remains fascinating and useful beyond compare."

   In my opinion, Francisco de peñalosa is one of the best polyphonic masters in the Spain of XV and XVI centuries.
This album is essential, because it is the only one that contains all the composer's motets.
Bruno Tuner was the leading specialist in Renaissance polyphony from the 60s. The first who founded a music group that turned this musical repertoire into "popular" in the past century.
It's possible that the sound, technique, balance... not the best -especially when compared with the current ensembles-, but they were pioneers in this and that is much more valuable than anything else.
Thanks a lot for your devotion, passion, effort, hard work... Renaissance polyphony into the 21st Century is not the same without them.

• Album.

 

The Choir Project al día [11-II-2013]

Pierre Moulu [c.1484-c.1550]: Missa Missvs est Gabriel angelvs a 4.
The Brabant Ensemble - Stephen Rice.
Not everything is Josquin.

   In words by Stephen Rice:
"The surviving documentary evidence of Pierre Moulu’s life amounts to very little: documents in the Vatican identify a Petrus Moulu, a cleric of the diocese of Meaux between the years 1505 (when he stated that he was in his twenty-first year) and 1513, who applied for permission for various privileges in that diocese. Whether this man can be identified with the composer of five Mass settings, approximately twenty motets and ten chansons seeming to date from the second and third decades of the sixteenth century, is not proven, but is the best assumption presently available. Moulu the composer thus joins the long lists of Renaissance musicians whose lives are all but entirely masked in shadow. Fortunately a number of his works found favour with his contemporaries to the extent that they appear in numerous early manuscripts and prints, and they have attracted the attention of music historians since the earliest days of the discipline in the late nineteenth century. Like much of the large repertory of sixteenth-century polyphony, however, his works have rarely been performed in modern times, and this is the first recording devoted to his music.

   Missa Missus est Gabriel angelus perhaps represents Moulu’s finest achievement in terms of purely musical expression. Pierre de Ronsard in the introduction to his Livre de mellanges of 1560 described Moulu as a disciple of Josquin (he was numbered alongside eight others, Ronsard’s selection of names exhibiting a notable bias to musicians active in the region of Paris). If a connection between Moulu and Josquin—for which there is no documentary evidence—did exist, this Mass-setting based on a short motet by the older composer would seem to represent the closest approach between their respective styles. Josquin’s motet is characteristic of his four-voice writing in maintaining a sparse texture with the voices imitating strongly memorable phrases. The characteristic rising leap of a fifth at the beginning of the piece exemplifies this trait of Josquin: frequently the voices work in pairs, as at ‘nuntians ei verbum’. Appropriation of plainsong melodies is common in Josquin’s music, as is true of many Renaissance composers: in Missus est Gabriel this is most clearly seen at the words Ave Maria, where the famous chant is strikingly introduced in the bass, the other voices following at a distance of two breves, all on the same pitch. Finally the closing Alleluia is set to an evocative fauxbourdon texture—a succession of first inversion chords that frequently was associated with sweetness in early sixteenth-century music.

   Moulu’s parody adopts many of the standard techniques for deriving Masses from motets, notably retention of the most arresting moments from the model. For instance, four of the five movements open with the rising fifth motif from the beginning of the motet, the exception being the Credo, which is headed with a homophonic passage—however, the rising fifth is retained in the bass part underpinning the harmony. Similarly, the fauxbourdon texture from the motet returns at the end of the Kyrie and Sanctus movements, where its falling lines create an effectively ruminative close for these supplicatory texts. The section of Josquin’s piece that would have been most immediately recognizable to his and Moulu’s contemporaries is the quotation of the Ave Maria chant: this is retained by Moulu but its surprising introduction by the bassus is not: the most obvious statement of the chant is made by the tenor in the Hosanna section, the bass harmonizing it in long notes while the soprano and alto exchange a newly composed melody above.

   A final characteristic of Josquin that Moulu adopts and extends is strategic repetition. Josquin is known for repeating the same short motif several times in succession (a famous example occurs in the Kyrie of his Pange lingua Mass), and Moulu takes this to almost obsessive levels at times. In the Pleni of Missa Missus est Gabriel, which is for the two upper voices only, the same four-note motif occurs no fewer than five times in succession in the soprano (Track 5, from 1'45"), and at the end of this section (2'25") the alto has four statements of the same melodic fragment. I interpret the musical gesture of the soprano statement as intensifying a drive towards the cadence that is frequently found in early Renaissance music; additionally the Pleni exemplifies the concept of varietas, much prized in theoretical treatises of the time, in that while one voice repeats, the other is continuously fashioning new counterpoints against it, working the melodic material to its utmost. The Mass-setting as a whole exhibits an austere beauty that recalls its distinguished model without slavishly aping it."

   I think the shadow of Josquin is long. Sheltered it was emerging interest in Franco-Flemish polyphony and in other composers at that time considered as minor.
In this way began to perform the music of Nicolas Gombert, Jacob Clemens non Papa, Orlandus Lassus, Or Pierre de Manchicourt, for example.
Over the years, interest in the five generations of Franco-Flemish composers has not stopped growing, so that now almost known more than a hundred authors of this períod, some of which are performed and recorded with some assiduity.

   Pierre Moulu is a perfect example of these composers almost unknown. In fact, this is the first and only album devoted entirely to this composer.

   This album is really wonderful, full of musical and musicological interest.
The Moulu's music is really wonderful, simply amazing.
This mass is absolutely fantastic, full of finesse, elegance, tenderness and great expressiveness.
I like a lot this performance, full of "Bristish sound". The queality of these voices and this intelligence when singing this music are fabulous.
A really wonderful album, indispensable for fanatics of Renaissance polyphony.

• Album.
• Performer. 

 

The Choir Project al día [04-II-2013]

Josquin des Prez [c.1450/55-1521]: Planxit autem David a 4.
The Binchois Consort - Andrew Kirkman.
The power of pain.

    Andrew Kirkman wrotes about Josquin and this piece:
"The reputation of Josquin Des prés cast a long shadow after his death in 1521. Demand for his music, particularly in Germany, far outstripped supply, leading to the widespread reattribution to Josquin of pieces by other composers. Thus Georg Forster could famously recall in 1540 hearing ‘ … a certain eminent man saying that, now that Josquin is dead, he is putting out more works than when he was alive’. Yet if some of the pieces bearing Josquin’s name in these late sources look unlikely to say the least, others, more plausibly ascribed to lesser-known masters elsewhere, relate closely in terms of style to more verifiably authentic pieces. In considering these pieces, today sitting on the fringe of the Josquin ‘canon’, we should not forget that many of them had passed muster as genuine Josquin in the eyes of the most eminent aficionados of their day, men whose perceptions of Josquin, expressed in treatises and prefaces, form the bedrock of our understanding of him today.

    This disc gives you the chance to judge for yourself: pieces whose places in the Josquin canon are as firm as seems possible in the present state of knowledge are set against others that, though widely assumed to be by Josquin in the sixteenth century, are now more plausibly assigned to others. Along with these pieces are others that are ascribed unambiguously to composers who, though less celebrated than Josquin both now and in the early sixteenth century, were capable nonetheless of rising, on at least some occasions, to heights comparable with those scaled by their better-known contemporary. Whatever the (considerable) financial incentive of printing spurious works under Josquin’s name, to ascribe a piece by someone else to Josquin may often also have represented a ‘seal of approval’, a sign of a high level of perceived quality. And, whatever the relations between our aesthetic perceptions and those of the mid-sixteenth century, listeners will surely agree that the pieces presented here – whether by Josquin himself or by a member of his ‘company’ – share not just stylistic common ground but also a high level of musical inspiration.

    If Planxit autem David, a setting of David’s lament over his dead sons, strikes a tone to our ears less of lamenting than of considered contemplation, the eloquence of its text setting, with each elegantly sculpted phrase set off from the next, is unmistakable. In a famous description, the mid-sixteenth-century German theorist Heinrich Glarean commented that ‘ … throughout this entire song there has been preserved the mood appropriate to the mourner, who at first is wont to cry out frequently, and then, turning gradually to melancholy complaints, to murmur subduedly and presently to subside, and sometimes, when emotion breaks forth anew, to raise his voice again and to emit a cry; all these things we see observed very beautifully in this song, just as it is also apparent to the observing. Nor is there anything in this song that is not worthy of its composer. He has everywhere expressed most wonderfully the mood of lamenting …’.".

    For me, Josquin is one of the best composers in the History of Music, and it is probably the best to put music to pain -"le douleur" for the French-.
This piece, as usual in Josquin music, it's for four parts -in this case, Josquin it's probably the best for put music in these parts-, but the evocative power is immense. The pain is almost palpable, physical here. The emotion is really stunnig, really worldly.

    The performance is very good, with male voices only. Technically brilliant, expressiveness is the highlight of this recording, completing an excellent album.

• Album.
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• Face page.

 

The Choir Project al día [26-I-2012]

Francisco Hernández [1517-1587]: Sancta Maria, e! a 4.
Ex Cathedra - Jeffrey Skidmore.
Renaissance polyphony in Mexico.

   Jeffrey Skidmore wrotes about Renaissance and Baroque Music from Latin America:
"It is not surprising that Hanacpachap cussicuinin is so widely performed throughout Latin America and also seems to capture the imagination of all who hear it outside this seductive region. The music is noble, magical and haunting and is the earliest printed polyphony from the continent of South America. It is set for four voices in Sapphic verse in the Quechua language. The colourful imagery of the sequence of prayers skilfully mixes Inca and Christian imagery, with its references to stores of silver and gold, life without end, deceitful jaguars and sins of the devil. The singers may sing it ‘in processions entering the church’. It makes an extraordinarily powerful beginning to any service, concert, or recording. It is recorded here for the third time by Ex Cathedra with new orchestrations and new verses. It is surprising that it is so often performed using only the first two of the twenty verses given in the source.

    Moon, sun and all things is an anthology of Latin American music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, chosen from the vast amount of extraordinary repertoire I discovered on research visits to the USA, Mexico and Bolivia. I worked in the Loeb Music Library at Harvard University, the Puebla Cathedral Archive and the Bolivian National Library in Sucre. I met many musicians in the National Arts Centre in Mexico City and in the Association for Art and Culture (APAC) in Santa Cruz.

  These were wonderful trips and I made many new friends who were companions and guides giving generously of their time: Salua Delalah (German Embassy), Ton de Wit (Prins Claus Foundation), Cecilia Kenning de Mansilla (APAC) and Josefina Gonsález (Saint Cecilia Choir, Puebla). Nick Robins, a remarkable researcher from the USA who specializes in Indian Rebellions, gave a very different angle on the lives of indigenous tribes and the influence of the church. Annie de Copponex, a native of Santa Cruz and lover of all things Bolivian, who for many years has lived in London, was also a great influence and inspiration. I met representatives from the World Bank, World Development Corporation, Christian Aid, and other researchers from around the world. Che Guevara’s Bolivian Diary opens ‘A new stage begins today’. It was certainly a life-changing experience for me.

   I visited twenty churches, attended ten Masses and heard twelve concerts. I shared several days travelling on pot-holed dirt tracks through the humid jungle of Eastern Bolivia with Freiburg Baroque and the English ensemble Florilegium, who were recording a CD as part of an imaginative education project with young Bolivian singers. I saw and heard hundreds of Chiquitos children playing and singing their Baroque heritage in their own towns and villages.

   I also made contact with several leading Latin American musicologists who were willing to share their knowledge and expertise and again showed remarkable generosity: Juan Manuel Lara Cárdenas (Capillas and Nahuatl texts), Aurelio Tello (Sumaya) and Piotr Nawrot (Zipoli). I also met Bernado Illari, an Argentinian musicologist. In a few brief chats he revealed great insight into many aspects of performance practice.

    I wholeheartedly thank all these people who in some way had a hand in shaping this recording.

   The structure of the programme follows that of the Vespers Service, with the opening Response, three polyphonic Psalm settings (this was often normal practice in Sucre), a Hymn and Magnificat. The plainchant antiphons are those set for the feast of St Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order. In between these liturgical works I have placed popular villancicos with Spanish texts and sacred motets with texts in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. It was common practice throughout Latin America for services to intersperse popular music with the more conservative liturgical repertoire. Contemporary commentators describe villancicos as ‘sacred entertainment for the masses’ (1774), to be ‘performed with great authority and solemnity’ (1630), the ‘most relevant aspect of the service’ (1630), where ‘worship and true faith are set aside to attend to the pleasures of the senses – to flatter the ear and the vain appetites of the congregation’ (1755). Three of the composers represented here – Padilla, Araujo and Sumaya – all wrote fluently in both liturgical and popular styles and are worthy of much greater attention.

   Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla was born in Spain in 1590 and moved to Mexico in 1622. In 1629 he became maestro de capilla at Puebla Cathedral where he served until his death in 1664. Puebla had lavish resources at its disposal including a large choir of fourteen boys and twenty-eight men. Robert Stevenson writes that ‘the musicians sat in double rows of seats facing each other. This arrangement encouraged antiphonal effects and the extensive use of instruments. During Padilla’s time the favoured instruments were the organ, harp and bass viol, forming a continuo; these were supplemented by recorders, chirimías, cornetts, sackbuts and bajóns, frequently used to double or replace voices.’ This is large-scale music. Padilla’s brilliant setting of the opening Response is scored for two choirs suitably orchestrated.

   Juan de Araujo belongs to a later generation. He was born in Spain in 1648 and emigrated as a child to Lima in Peru. At the age of twenty-two he was appointed choirmaster at the Cathedral there. In 1676 he moved to a similar post at the cathedral in La Plata, which is now Sucre in Bolivia. He worked with thirty-five musicians in this beautiful, white cathedral and stayed there until his death in 1712. He is thought by many to be the greatest composer working in the Americas at that time, and certainly comparable to leading European musicians. Araujo was one of the finest choir trainers of his time and was particularly successful at training young voices. His setting of Dixit Dominus is scored for three choirs, one a trio of solo voices doubled by viols, and two full choirs doubled by strings, woodwind and brass. Polyphony alternates with plainchant. The vast majority of Araujo’s surviving manuscripts are now to be found in the impressive Bolivian National Library in Sucre, which opened in January 2004. Seventeen manuscripts were presented to me by the library in digital form on CD. The notation of Araujo’s music is particularly interesting, making use of ‘void’ notation and ‘black’ notation. This is a very neat way of writing down the complex rhythms of the villancicos, and warning the performer of the problems at the same time.

   Diego José de Salazar was a Spanish composer who is not known to have visited the New World. ¡Salga el torillo hosquillo! is found in the Sucre archive in several forms attributed to both Araujo and Salazar.

   Francisco López Capillas was the first Creole composer of significance and his music was so highly regarded that several volumes of his music were taken to Spain and widely disseminated. He worked in Mexico City and in Puebla from 1641 to 1648 under the directorship of Padilla. Whilst Capillas’ style is very polished and sophisticated, the Poblano influence is strongly in evidence with its lively double-choir interchanges of short phrases.

   Manuel de Sumaya was another Creole composer of a later generation born in Mexico City where he was a Priest Musician at the cathedral and eventually became maestro de capilla in 1714. He was highly rated in his day and is considered by many to be one of the great composers of New Spain. His move to Oaxaca in the last years of his life is still largely unexplained. It may have been precipitated by a conflict with the Cathedral Chapter. He seems to have been very happy with the set-up in the beautiful city of Oaxaca and wrote some of his finest music there. He had a choir of twenty singers and ten players. He also worked closely with Indian musicians. ¡Albricias, mortales! is a vibrant setting of an uplifting text. There is a joyful dialogue between a three- and four-part choir and ensemble of trumpet and strings.

   Domenico Zipoli was born in Tuscany in 1688 and studied with Alessandro Scarlatti in Naples. In 1716 he joined the Company of Jesus and the following year left for Paraguay with a Jesuit mission. He was an organist and composer in Córdoba until his death in 1726. Much of his music was rediscovered only a few years ago and it reveals why it was so popular with the Chiquitos Indians in Bolivia who regularly performed and copied his music. The Jesuit Mission Stations in the jungle of Eastern Bolivia are a string of beautifully restored churches including San Javier, Concepción, San Ignacio, San Miguel and Santa Ana. They are now a World Heritage site. I attended concerts and Masses at all of these and all were packed to the rooftops with children watching and listening attentively in the doorways and at the windows. An inventory of musical resources from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries shows that some churches had one, two, even three organs, up to seven harps, twelve violins, between three and five violones, four trumpets, at least one tromba marina, a bassoon, two harpsichords and bells. This is happy, optimistic music which reflects the Utopian dream of the ‘reductions’. It is our aim to recreate these sounds, although Zipoli’s music is notated, typically, for only three high voices (SAT), two violins and continuo.

   The mesmerically simple Dulce Jesús mío is also found in the mission archives set in Spanish and in the language of the Chiquitos Indians as Yyaî Jesuchristo. It is performed as a recessional piece with all the musicians leaving the stage, one by one, as in our concerts.

   The non-liturgical pieces perhaps need further explanation. Dios itlazonantziné is a beautiful Nahuatl text set by Hernando Franco, who was probably the first notable composer to move to New Spain. He was born in 1532 in Extremadura, the home of the ‘conquistadores’, and became maestro de capilla at Mexico City in 1575. Sancta Maria, e! is an exquisite miniature also set in Nahuatl by the Indian composer Francisco Hernández, who as a tribute took his name from Franco, his teacher. The three popular-style Spanish villancicos all have remarkable texts rich in conceptual imagery, sometimes comical and sometimes profoundly serious. The double-choir setting of ¡Salga el torillo hosquillo! dramatically describes a bullfight which becomes an allegory of the Birth and Passion of Christ. The coplas are particularly striking for their use of powerful and emotive language combined with a ravishingly beautiful melody. The original manuscript describes ¡Aquí, Valentónes! as a xácara, a form used to reflect street-life – el mundo de la hampa. It is dedicated to St Francis of Assisi who is referred to both as the most street-wise saint and as ‘el valentón más divino’ – ‘the most divine ruffian’. The alternation of solo passages and triple-choir interjections vividly captures the dramatic urgency of ‘gang slang’ put here to effective proselytizing purpose. ¡Ay, andar! celebrates the birth of Jesus in an ecstatic ‘dance till you drop’ knees-up which builds to an orgiastic, frenzied climax. This is going more than half-way to meet the congregation!"

   In my opinion, this piece is an exemplary piece of Renaissance in the Spanish colonies in America. The homophonic and vertical style is obvious, but there is also a small space for counterpoint, with crossed lines and in the cadences.
This piece is really Renaissance, archaic in some respects. I really enjoy with it, especially at the cadences, with the delicate movement of the lines to the final chord.

   This performance is really amazing, fantastic, very expressive... really British, in fact.
This album is very interesting, a good example for this repertoire.

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The Choir Project al día [5-I-2013]

Giovanni Gabrieli [c.1554/1557-1612]: Quem vidistis pastores? a 16.
The King's Consort - Robert King.
Venetian polycohoral Epiphany.

    Robert King wrote about Gabrieli's Christmas Motets:
"Thomas Coryate, writing in his Crudities hastily gobbled up in five Moneth’s Travels was transported almost beyond all words by his discovery at the Venetian Church of San Rocco in 1608 of
‘… the best musicke that ever I did in all my life both in the morning and the afternoone, so good that I would willingly goe an hundred miles a foote at any time to hear the like … this feast consisted principally of Musicke, which was both vocall and instrumentall, so good, so delectable, so rare, so admirable, so superexcellent, that it did even ravish and stupifie all those strangers that never heard the like. But how others were affected with it I knew not: for mine own part I can say this, that I was for the time even rapt up with Saint Paul into the third heaven …’

    Of the singers too he was equally enthused, for ‘there were three or foure so excellent that I think few or none in Christendome do excell them, especially one, who had such a peerelesse and (as I might in a manner say) such a supernaturall voice for sweetnesses, that I think there was never a better singer in all the world …’

    We do not know for sure whose music it was that received such praise, but it could easily have been that of Giovanni Gabrieli. He was the most influential Venetian musical figure of his time, famed both as a composer and as a teacher of a number of distinguished pupils, including Heinrich Schütz, and his music was circulated widely through the publication of major collections of works in 1597 and posthumously in 1615. From 1585 to his death Gabrieli was organist at both the religious confraternity of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco and at St Mark’s, Venice (where he was responsible not only for the music but also for procuring extra instrumentalists and singers for the more important festivals and feast days). In addition, after his uncle Andrea’s death in 1586 he took over the role as principal composer at St Mark’s.
 

   Music in Venice was inextricably bound up with civic life, for state processions, civic ceremonies and some forty main religious festivals each year demanded music to match the splendour of the occasion. The Feast of Christmas demanded some of the grandest and most spectacular music of all. In 1607 Jean-Baptiste Duval of the French Embassy reported that at St Mark’s there were more than one thousand candles, sixty huge torches and silver lamps, together with eight choirs of voices and instruments ‘filling the church with a grand harmony’. Even allowing for enthusiastic exaggeration, it must have been a spectacular occasion. Little wonder that some of Gabrieli’s most magnificent music was composed for Christmas in St Mark’s.

  Most of Gabrieli’s motets were printed in two large collections, one published posthumously. Many are settings of texts sung on the major Venetian state festivals and are for two or more choirs in the tradition of cori spezzati. Although it is hard to date works exactly, there is a clear change of style in his later works, confirmed by the type of music that his pupils were writing. In all his works, but especially in those for more than two choirs, Gabrieli’s flair for sonorities is particularly evident, showing the ultimate development of the old motet style.

    Audite principes, too, dates from the later collection, and is scored for two five-part choirs, one six-part choir and continuo. From the opening declamatory statement, heard three times as an introduction to each choir, to the colossal block of sound as all seventeen parts unite at the midpoint before launching into the dancing triple-time gaudeamus, here is music of considerable complexity and great splendour. The final Alleluia, back in duple metre after another dance-like section, ends the work with due solemnity.

    O magnum mysterium comes from an earlier source, the 1587 collection Concerti per voci e stromenti musicali, and has a mood of subdued reverence, fitting for its subject matter, until syncopation breaks out for the closing Alleluia. In keeping with the relatively simple setting, the first choir is scored here for four voices and organ, and the second choir for solo alto and three sackbuts. Perhaps it was this latter combination (and particularly the falsettist or castrato’s ‘supernaturall voice … never a better singer in all the world’) that so transported Coryate, for it is a magical combination of sounds.

    With Salvator noster we return to the 1615 collection, and a magnificent setting for three five-part choirs and an independent continuo line. The wide variety of textures and moods contained within the motet shows Gabrieli’s responsiveness to the text, and the high instrumental lines at the top of choirs one and two, furnished with lively flourishes, and the dancing rhythms give the motet a celebratory mood. The closing Alleluia travels through a series of sections before the motet ends in a blaze of sound. Little wonder that Coryate was so transported by these rich mediterranean sounds: here indeed is music that is ‘superexcellent’!

    Quem vidistis pastores? is one of Gabrieli’s finest works. Scored in sixteen parts it comes from the posthumous volume Sacrae symphoniae … liber secundus of 1615. After the opening orchestral sinfonia, scored for two choirs of instruments and showing Gabrieli’s love of lower sonorities, the work shows elements of the later chamber style as the six singers introduce themselves one by one, accompanied by the newly introduced basso continuo. This small-scale texture continues until the full ensemble unites with awestruck majesty at O magnum mysterium. Here there are marvellous sonorities and a whole variety of textures, with grand flourishes for the word iacentem, a cutting down of the texture for in praesepio, magnificent block chords at et admirabile and a sumptuous ending."

    In my opinion it is very difficult to find an example of a more celebratory Christmas music that we can hear in the Venetian Polychoralism. Giovanni Gabrieli is a wonderful example of this.
This piece is a perfect example of this style, with the Symphonia and use of rethoric elements more characteristics and the fantastic idiomatic treatment of all parts.

    This performance is very interesting, especially with the whole ensemble -for me is in this parts, in which the interpretation is really good-. The four Christmas Motets in this album are really amazing. Really, really Venetian!

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The Choir Project al día [15-XII-2012]

Philippe de Monte [1521-1603]: Missa Ultimi miei sospiri a 6.
Cinquecento [Renaissance Vokal].
Mass about Madrigal, sacred about secular...

    For Stephen Rice
"Philippe de Monte was one of the most extraordinarily prolific composers of the Renaissance, perhaps of all time. Certainly in the madrigal genre he outstripped all competition, with no fewer than thirty-four books published between 1554 and his death in 1603, containing over a thousand individual pieces. While his sacred output is less voluminous, it is nonetheless impressive, with thirty-eight Mass settings, approximately 250 motets, and 144 madrigali spirituali.

    Born in 1521, Monte appears to have been a choirboy at the church of St Rombout in Mechelen. He worked in Italy for several periods, including a spell as music tutor to the Pinelli banking family in Naples. In the 1550s he was associated with the chapel of Philip II of Spain, visiting England in that capacity for the wedding of Philip to Mary Tudor; his meeting with William Byrd on that occasion probably led to an exchange of eight-part motets between the two composers in which they bemoaned the fate of Catholics in England (Monte: Super flumina Babylonis; Byrd: Quomodo cantabimus). But it is for his thirty-five-year tenure of the post of Kapellmeister at the Austrian Habsburg court that Monte is best known. Employed by Emperor Maximilian II in 1567, he remained in Habsburg service for the rest of his life, despite a change of emperor (Rudolf II ascended the throne in 1576) and his own requests from 1578 onwards for permission to retire. His work is described in Grove’s Dictionary as ‘unfold[ing] in unhurried, sometimes quite melismatic lines, [with] little evidence of post-Tridentine concerns about textual clarity’. As will become apparent from this recording, such a broad statement covers considerable variety in techniques and in atmosphere.

    The madrigal Ultimi miei sospiri by Philippe Verdelot is among the finest and best-known secular pieces of the earlier part of the sixteenth century. As one of the early pioneers of the madrigal, Verdelot was also among the first to compose examples of the genre for as many as six parts, a texture which offers significant opportunities for contrast between high and low groups of voices, or other combinations. Such techniques form a major part of the text-setting strategy of this generation of madrigalists, with the text-obscuring properties of imitative counterpoint offset by the chance to re-hear the same words sung by another group of voices. Although madrigals of the 1520s do not approach the levels of chromaticism seen later in the century, the idiom is nonetheless highly expressive, due to these composers’ command of textual accent (impressively, since the majority of them, including Verdelot, were not native Italian speakers), and of tessitura. An instance of the latter is found in Ultimi miei sospiri at ‘Dite, o beltà infinita’ (‘Speak, O infinite beauty’) where the change of voice from narrative to interlocution is marked with a new entry on the highest pitch yet heard. Verdelot’s artistry is again observable towards the end of the piece where the long notes of ‘Tornat’in me’ (‘return to me’) appear to be guiding the music towards a peaceful ending, but a final effort at energetic movement is made on ‘ch’io non vorrò morire’, as the narrator rages against the dying of the light.

    Such recognizable musical characteristics made Verdelot’s madrigals (and indeed motets) eminently suitable models for the imitation Mass genre that dominated the later sixteenth century. As formulated by the theorist Pietro Cerone, writing in 1613, the essence of this technique is to transplant sections of polyphony into crucial moments of one’s Mass setting, more or less in the order that they appear in the model. This represents only part of the spectrum of borrowing techniques used in the century preceding Cerone’s remark: thematic transformation, juxtaposition of polyphonic sections in quite different ways, recomposition of imitative counterpoint, all found their place in the sixteenth-century imitation Mass. Monte’s technique in his Missa Ultimi miei sospiri does however resemble that described by the theorist: each Mass movement begins with a version of the madrigal’s opening, albeit slightly varied. Elsewhere he is relatively sparing in the use of borrowed material: examples include Domine Deus (‘Lord God’) in the Gloria, which adapts ‘Dal tuo fedel’’ (‘that your faithful one’) from the madrigal, and per quem omnia facta sunt (‘through him all things were made’) in the Credo, taking the phrase ‘Gitene ratt’in ciel’’ (‘go swiftly to heaven’). This latter phrase is also recast in triple time to form the basis of the Osanna.

    In common with many of his contemporaries, Monte divides his Mass movements into formal subsections. The Et incarnatus section of the Credo is one example: here the solemnity of the words is underlined by a full, slow chordal texture, followed by a brief upper-voice section for the Crucifixus. Another division separates the Christological section of the Credo with that dealing with the Holy Spirit and the Church: the latter is notable for its syncopated figures, a compositional device that adds to the vigour of this largely joyful final section. It also injects a certain madrigalian feeling to the movement, though such syncopation is in fact absent from Verdelot’s model."

    In my opinion, this a fantastis Mass satting about a italian Madrigal. I think the style of Monte and Verdelot is relatively distant, but I think the work he does in this Mass is very careful with the original Madrigal.
The performance is woderfull: crystalline, wonderful pitch, fantastic sound, good balance, really expressive... to complete an album that is essential for all Renaissance polyphony fans.

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The Choir Project al día [08-XII-2012]

Dominique Phinot [c.1510-b.1561]: Pater peccavi a 5.
The Brabant Ensemble - Stephen Rice.
The talent of the unknowns.

   Roger Jacob & Stephen Rice think about this composer and his works:
"That this recording is the first to concentrate on the sacred music of Dominique Phinot is a reminder that a significant amount of music composed in the early sixteenth century continues to be terra incognita to present-day audiences. Moreover, our knowledge of the lives and careers of composers at this time is often based upon little more than fragmentary evidence. Information about Phinot’s career, for instance, is confined to a handful of documents from the 1540s and 1550s which indicate that he was a musician in the service of Duke Guidobaldo II of Urbino. A memorandum of 1544 records that he was proposed by the Duke for the post of cantor (singer or choirmaster) at the cathedral in Pesaro.

   Since all of Phinot’s works received their first printings during the period 1538–1555, the composer is likely to have been in his late twenties by the first date, in which case he would have been born around 1510. From Girolamo Cardano’s essay Theonoston, which implies that Phinot was executed for homosexual practices, we learn that his death occurred before 1561.

   Phinot’s output consists of over a hundred motets, two Masses, and settings of Vesper Psalms and the Magnificat, as well as two books of French chansons and two Italian madrigals. The acclaim with which his sacred compositions were received is evident both in the frequency of their publications as well as in the writings of his contemporaries. He was renowned as a master of imitative polyphonic writing, a trait which he shares with Gombert, Clemens non Papa, Willaert, and others of that generation who were the successors of Josquin Desprez. Indeed, the theorist Hermann Finck in 1556 placed Phinot behind only Gombert, Clemens, and Crecquillon (and ahead of Willaert) in a list of composers he described as ‘foremost, most excellent, subtlest and, in my judgement, to be imitated’.

   The publication in Lyons during 1547–8 of two collections of Phinot’s motets secured his reputation for the rest of the century and beyond. Not only do the five-voice motets in the Liber primus mutetarum confirm his outstanding polyphonic skills but the Liber secundus contains five eight-voice works which are of considerable historical importance. The latter are unique in the mid-sixteenth century in their treatment of double-choir dialogue, a technique in which two four-part ensembles normally alternate thematically related phrases of varying lengths. These works, of which four are included in this recording, are the antecedents of the resplendent Venetian polychoral tradition of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

   In his eight-voice sacred works Phinot builds upon those essential features of double-choir technique which first appeared in the liturgical music of northern Italy, mainly in the Veneto, during the early decades of the sixteenth century. Psalms and canticles, which had for long been associated with ritual antiphonal performance, frequently inspire double-choir settings by composers such as Ruffino d’Assisi (fl1510–1532) and Francesco Santacroce (1488–1556), who already exploit varied lengths of choral exchange, contrasts of high and low register between ensembles, and chordal writing, in order to create genuine double-choir dialogue.

   One of the most controversial theories surrounding the performance of Renaissance polyphony is that of the so-called ‘secret chromatic art’. First proposed by the scholar Edward Lowinsky (1908–1985) in relation to motets by Jacob Clemens non Papa, it holds that certain pieces could be performed with the addition of numerous accidental flats, sometimes leading to the entire piece ending a semitone lower than it began through a process of transposition. Lowinsky hypothesized that this related to crypto-Protestant significance in the music: Clemens’s mysterious nickname ‘non Papa’ would in this case indicate anti-Papal leanings—though more recent research suggests that Clemens was so called for much more prosaic reasons to do with his debauched lifestyle. Whatever the background to this phenomenon, it is certainly the case that in several pieces of this period, if the rules of musica ficta are followed as most likely would have happened in performance from separate partbooks, one flat after another appears in the music and leads to a downward spiral. One such example is Phinot’s Pater peccavi, a motet based on the story of the prodigal son.

   The first half of the motet proceeds in a contrapuntally unproblematic way; only when the son begins to describe his miserable circumstances (hic fame pereo) does the modulation begin, achieving the entire shift in an extraordinary passage a little over half a minute long (3'45" to 4'20"). Having so to speak ‘found his feet’ in the new tonality the son resolves to go back to his father to beg forgiveness (Surgam et ibo), but the pain of his humiliation is underlined by the highly expressive downward sequence of suspensions (et dicam ei) before the plea ‘Make me as one of your servants’ (Fac me sicut unum ex mercenariis tuis) returns in a mood of resignation. Such a direct narrative explanation may seem out of place for a motet published as early as 1538; yet the remarkable effect both of the ‘secret chromatic’ spiral and the later suspension passage suggests just such an interpretation despite the early date."

   For me, this a wonderful album and the only monographic recording on the works of Phinot -I think-, an excellent reason to celebrate this.
The performance is really great, specially female voices -the Ashby sisters are absolutely amazing-.
This music will surprise many by its immense quality, I'm sure.

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The Choir Project al día [24-XI-2012]

Jacobus Clemens non Papa [c.1510/15-1555/6]: Missa Pro defvnctis a 4.
The Brabant Ensemble - Stephen Rice.
Et lvx perpetva lvceat eis.

    For Stephen Rice:
"Jacobus Clemens non Papa is one of the most remarkably underrated composers of the sixteenth century. From the 1540s onwards he was widely published throughout Europe, in particular by Tilman Susato of Antwerp (himself a composer). Clemens’s surviving output of motets, Mass-settings, Magnificats, Souterliedekens (Dutch metrical Psalms) and secular songs in French and Dutch approaches five hundred items in total, placing him among the most prolific of the age. Sixteenth-century writers on music who discuss the leading contemporary musicians invariably placed him in the first rank. Yet Clemens’s position in modern understanding of Renaissance polyphony can only be described as marginal. The number of recordings devoted to his work is still in single figures, and his music features in concert programmes and the music lists of ecclesiastical choirs only rarely. This is particularly surprising because his style of composition, to a greater degree than that of contemporaries such as Crecquillon and Manchicourt, is based on melody rather than being contrapuntally driven—though his contrapuntal skill is undoubted. Moreover, Clemens frequently created striking aural images, which catch the ear with a sudden change of texture or harmonic shift: in contrast to the intentionally seamless polyphony of the slightly older Gombert, for instance, which creates its effect by gradual intensification and relaxation, Clemens’s music is far more straightforwardly dramatic.

    Little-known though his music may be, Clemens is at least celebrated for his nickname. The significance of the sobriquet ‘non Papa’ has been debated for a number of years, but the recent discovery by Henri Vanhulst of correspondence in 1553 between the Archduke Maximilian of Austria and Philippe du Croÿ, son of a deceased patron of Clemens, offers a possible explanation. Maximilian was seeking to build up the musical establishment of his chapel, and requested that his father’s Kapellmeister, the Netherlander Pieter Maessens, travel to the Low Countries in order to secure the services of Clemens. Du Croÿ replied that although it would be possible to achieve this, he would not recommend Clemens on account of the fact that he was a great drunkard and lived immorally (‘un grant ivrogne et tres mal vivant’—the latter probably referring to Clemens breaching his priestly vow of chastity). The position went to another Netherlander, the young Jacobus Vaet, and Clemens’s puzzling lack of any important employment, considering his fame and popularity as a composer, is explained. This story has a bearing, also, on the nickname (which appears in manuscripts in jocular alternative forms such as ‘nono Papa’ and ‘haud Papa’—‘absolutely not the Pope’). The time during Clemens’s life when there was a Pope Clement—the seventh, alias Giulio de’ Medici—was 1523 to 1534, during Clemens’s adolescence: one may speculate therefore that the composer became known as ‘non Papa’ at that time because of his distinctly un-ecclesiastical behaviour, and that the name persisted long after any distinction between musician and prelate was necessary, if it ever had been.

    What about Clemens’s music caused his great popularity? Two features of his style stand out and set him somewhat apart from his contemporaries: both have to do with the constructive properties of his polyphony. Whereas musicians operating within the standard career paths of the time, such as his direct contemporary Thomas Crecquillon, were educated firstly in contrapuntal technique, and continued throughout their lives to base their compositions on a series of contrapuntal points woven together, Clemens’s textures seem often to function as melody with supporting lines—all written in an imitative style, certainly, but designed to emphasize the melodic gesture rather than to subsume it into a contrapuntal whole. An analogy could be made with the procedure of George Frideric Handel: where Handel writes fugues, their essence is the presentation of melody, and where the melody demands to be treated in a particular way, the counterpoint will accommodate it.

    The second aspect of Clemens’s writing that draws the listener’s attention is the manipulation of harmony. To use the word ‘harmony’ in relation to sixteenth-century polyphony is to invite disapproval from those who believe the term anachronistic; but (partly for the reason elaborated in the last paragraph) I believe that Clemens can usefully be viewed in such terms, to a considerably greater extent than his contemporaries. Although passages in block chords had been present in sacred music for many years before his time, generally at moments of extreme solemnity such as the name of Jesus Christ in the Mass, on numerous occasions in the motets presented here Clemens blends chordal writing into the wider flow of the polyphony, in order to achieve effects that seem more to do with form or even more abstract concepts, than with illustration of the text.

    The Missa pro defunctis is not one of Clemens’s better-known Mass-settings, which is somewhat surprising given its austere beauty. Like most Requiem settings of the Renaissance, it combines movements from the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei—the Gloria and Credo would not have been sung at Masses for the dead) with those Proper to the occasion, namely the Introit, Tract, Offertory, and Communion. For most of the Mass the plainchant melodies are paraphrased in the tenor voice, though occasionally they are found in the soprano (for instance in the Kyrie and Offertory). Given the relatively restricted palette of four voices and chant paraphrase chosen by Clemens, he is able to conjure a remarkably varied range of harmonic colours across the seven movements of the Requiem.

    The Introit is the most conventional movement, with the chant in long notes in the tenor initially; for the Psalm verse et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem (‘and the vow will be repaid to you in Jerusalem’) the texture becomes homophonic with a straight falsobordone harmonization of the Psalm tone in the top voice. After the mandatory repeat of the opening section the Kyrie adopts a similar homophonic style, though Clemens begins to vary his choice of harmonies, notably by introducing an unexpected final chord for the Christe section. The Tract follows the plainsong into a different tonal area, reverting to a more imitative texture. Having created the dialogue between these two styles, Clemens begins in the latter part of the Tract to mingle them, first introducing harmonic twists (perhaps significantly at the word ‘evadere’), then underlining the sentiment of the final text phrase with a general pause and homophonic texture.

    The Offertory is both the central movement and the longest, at 4'30". In the main it is rapid, moving in fast semibreves and homophonically. The final line of the first section, quam olim Abrahae promisisti (‘as long ago you promised Abraham’) is more relaxed in spirit, yielding to chant (taken here by the women) and, following a further energetic verse, returning to round off the movement in a reflective vein.

    Like the Kyrie, the Sanctus and Agnus Dei are both short, but here—especially in the Agnus—Clemens is at his most ingenious in avoiding unnecessary repetition. Each invocation of the Agnus Dei ends on a slightly different chord: the final one is forced by the melodic shape of the top voice to finish in the minor, unusually for any Renaissance piece but especially for a Requiem movement since the chants are largely in the major mode (which at this time lacked any connotation of happiness, being regarded rather more as harsh). Finally the Communion Proper completes the Mass in tender fashion, with a return to the Requiem aeternam text and almost static chords for its response et lux perpetua luceat eis (‘and let perpetual light shine on them’), followed by a lightly ornamented repeat of the line quia pius es (‘since you are merciful’). Clemens’s Requiem Mass may be one of the less demonstrative sixteenth-century settings of these texts, eschewing the compositional virtuosity that characterizes his motets, but it achieves a solemn reflectiveness that is highly appropriate musically for this ritual of mourning."

    For me, this Reqviem is inexplicably very little performed and recorded.
This music has great depth -as it can not be otherwise given the text- but also we find there some really energetic moments, without falling in resignation.

    This album is absolutely fantastic -this piece is just enough-, but it's completes with some wonderful motets.
The performance is really great, with a beatiful sound and very delicated lines. This version is calm, deep and very expressive.

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The Choir Project ald día [06-XI-2012]

William Byrd [1540-1623]: Infelix ego a 6 from Cantiones Sacrae [1591].
The Cardinall's Musick - Andrew Carwood.
The great Catholic Byrd.

   Andrew Carwood says about Byrd and this motet:
"It is perhaps no surprise that Elizabethan England should have produced such an amazing array of artistic talent. Increased prosperity, strongly enforced government with a consistent religious policy, the growth of confidence as England took its place as a diplomatic and military force, these all helped to create the right conditions in which the arts could flourish. The arts were no longer simply used for reasons of propaganda and display but saw an increase in the importance of the individual and his unique abilities, a natural development from the humanistic ideas of the Renaissance. Standing at the pinnacle of this English flourishing is William Shakespeare, a man who through his crafting of words, control of drama and subtle character development could speak to people in many and various ways. Raucous vaudeville, romantic plot lines or searing tragedy for all, as well as coded political messages for monarchs, princes and politicians all under the guise of ‘innocent’ entertainment. If there is an English musician who comes close to Shakespeare in his consummate artistry, his control over so many genres and his ability to speak with emotional directness it must be William Byrd.

   Byrd spent his formative years in the maelstrom of the English reformation. Born in the reign of Henry VIII, he would have seen the changes brought in by Edward VI and his Protestant advisors and experienced, perhaps more deeply, Mary’s artistically stimulating Catholic restoration in his teenage years. As an adult he lived through the reign of Elizabeth and was in his sixties when her successor James came to the throne. It seems clear that Byrd’s sympathies lay with the Catholic cause. Unlike most of his contemporaries (except Peter Philips who fled to the Continent) the majority of his religious music was written in Latin. Furthermore, in the 1590s and the dangerous months after the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 he published not only music in Latin but texts specifically designed to be performed during the celebration of Catholic Mass and Divine Office. His three settings of the Ordinary movements of the Mass were published in the early 1590s and his two books of Gradualia in 1605 and 1607 respectively. In addition he published Latin sacred music in 1575, 1589 and 1591 and left a host of pieces in manuscript. It is interesting that not a note of his music for Elizabeth’s reformed church (including the monumental Great Service for ten voices) was published during his lifetime.

   Byrd was probably not encouraged to write by the stability or consistency of Elizabeth’s reign. It is possible that the anti-Catholic legislation enacted by the government was a stimulus; perhaps even the crescendo of tension around the imminent arrival of the first Spanish Armada and its defeat in 1588 might have had an effect on the composer but this is merely speculation. The simple fact appears to be that Byrd proclaimed through his music his Catholic faith, the deprivation that he felt and the hope to which he clung. In so doing, he spoke directly to the Catholic community with messages of hope and consolation. It is remarkable that Byrd escaped serious penalty for his beliefs. Perhaps the censors and the spies did not understand his messages or notice his carefully chosen texts where verses from scripture were placed in a different order so as to highlight a particular emotion. Perhaps music was not thought to be a serious threat. And perhaps Byrd’s devotion to the country of his birth was clearly understood. He never left England and if he considered the possibility of joining the throng of Catholic exiles he never acted on the idea. Undoubtedly the greatest point in his favour was his brilliance as a musician. He was able to assimilate the sounds of the past as taught to him by John Sheppard and Thomas Tallis, to learn from his contemporaries (especially Alfonso Ferrabosco) and then to be at the forefront of compositional development at all times, most notably in the madrigalian pieces of the 1591 Cantiones Sacrae and the two books of Gradualia (published when Byrd was in his sixties). Elizabeth I might even have been personally aware and appreciative of his talents. Surely she must have been moved by his most beautiful English-texted piece O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth our Queen to rejoice in thy strength. Is it too fanciful to suggest that there was some degree of understanding between the two? Shakespeare was allowed to make pointed contemporary remarks under the cloak of entertainment: perhaps Byrd was given the same liberty with his music.

   Infelix ego is the crowning glory of Byrd’s achievement as a composer of spiritual words and one of the greatest artistic statements of the sixteenth century. The text is a meditation on Psalm 50 written by the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498). This remarkable man successfully led a campaign in Florence against the corrupt Medici family. With his powerful preaching he roused the townsfolk in religious zeal, cast out the Medici and set up a devastatingly rigorous Christian regime. Inevitably the fickle populace eventually grew tired of Savonarola’s severe piety and welcomed the Medici back; to satisfy their wounded pride, the family arranged for Savonarola to be tried for heresy (rather than treason) and then executed by fire. This remarkable text, taking the form of a number of rhetorical statements and questions, shows the whole gamut of emotion from a soul in torment—guilt, fear, embarrassment, anger, but crucially the gift of release when Christ’s mercy is accepted.

   Infelix ego had been set before by Adrian Willaert, Cipriano de Rore and Orlandus Lassus but none of these comes even close to this emotional tour de force. Byrd would have known Tallis’s radical setting of the prayer Suscipe quaeso Domine which uses homophony set against polyphony to underline rhetorical questions and which must inform the younger composer’s setting. But more than this Byrd seems to have an emotional link with Savonarola’s words and to understand the mindset which has given rise to them. Savonarola sits in his cell in Florence awaiting execution for having followed his heart and his religious faith. At one time he was acclaimed by the people and his beliefs were an integral part of their lives. Byrd is in England, cut off from his faith and the rest of the Church to which he belongs. His colleagues are persecuted for their beliefs, beliefs which had been held by most of the people in England. Perhaps it is this shared metaphorical experience which leads Byrd to understand the real power of this text. There is not the space here for a full analysis of this Renaissance symphony, nor time to refer to all of the telling and subtle gestures which permeate the piece. The upward melodies which express the yearning in the writer’s eyes looking up to heaven for redemption, like Marlowe’s Faustus seeing the blood of Christ running in the heavens but being unable to access it. The juxtaposition of polyphony with homophony throughout: the constant ebbing and flowing of emotion as powerful as the sea. The build up of tension caused by an extended period of imitation around one of Byrd’s most frequently chosen words (‘misericordiam’ or ‘mercy’). The master stroke of a caesura followed by an astonishing chord progression and then a coda where it seems as if the longed-for mercy has actually been received."

   For me this is one of best motets in Byrd's production. One of few, also with tripartite structure and one of longest on his work.
These performance is really wonderful, sing here the six parts with two singers per part [svperivs, medivs, contratenor, sextvs, tenor & bassvs], using a really "dream team" of Bristish singers.
This album -volume 13 of William Byrd edition on Hyperion Records- is absolutely fantastic and indispensable recording.

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The Choir Project al día [01-IX-2012]

Jacob Regnart (c.1540-1599): Quare tristis es, anima mea? a 4

Cinquecento (Reniassance Vokal).

Franco-flemish master around Europe.

   Stephen Rice, musicologist and conductor of The Brabant Ensemble, says about Regnart and his music:

"In contrast to the dearth of information we have about many of even the best-known Renaissance composers, the life and activities of Jacob Regnart are comparatively well documented. The reason for this is his long and almost continuous employment in the service of the Imperial Habsburg family, the running of whose chapel establishments was meticulously noted. Regnart was also the composer of several popular collections of German songs in three parts, and the wide dissemination of his music also contributes to our knowledge of his life and works.

It is not uncommon in early modern Europe for more than one family member to join the same trade or profession: among composers one thinks of the brothers Arnold and Hugo de Lantins in the early fifteenth century, and Antoine and Robert Févin around 1500. Jacob Regnart is unusual, however, in being one of no fewer than five brothers who were all ecclesiastical musicians. Two, Charles and Pascasius, were employed by the Spanish Habsburg king, Philip II; Augustin was a canon at Lille; and the best-known other than Jacob was François, who worked at Tournai and later for the Austrian Habsburgs, and by whom numerous motets and chansons survive. Augustin published a motet collection by his brothers, to which François contributed twenty-four pieces, and Jacob ten.

   The relative ages of the brothers are not known; Jacob seems likely to have been born in the early 1540s. He entered Habsburg service as early as 1557, presumably as a boy chorister, though by 1564 he was being paid the standard salary for an adult singer. Apart from a spell studying in Italy in the late 1560s, Regnart remained in Habsburg service until his death on 16 October 1599; during that time he worked under the emperors Maximilian II and Rudolf II and the Archduke Ferdinand, in Vienna, Prague and Innsbruck. His publications of secular music appeared at regular intervals from the 1570s onwards, often achieving several reprints. His sacred music also was published in quantity, though some publications are lost and other works survive only in manuscript. Perhaps the most important of Regnart’s publications (in his own eyes, at least) was the series of three books of Mass settings published in 1602/3. Although these emerged posthumously, Regnart himself left an extended dedicatory preface to the emperor Rudolf II in the first volume, so it would appear that he was working on this ‘complete edition’ before his death. In it he describes himself as having served ‘for many years as Vice-Master of the [Imperial] choir’.

   Regnart’s style is not dissimilar to that of his slightly older compatriot, Orlandus Lassus. Regnart and Lassus, indeed, shared numerous biographical details, both having worked as expatriate singers from a young age (Lassus in Naples), both remaining for long periods in the service of one family (Lassus at the Dukes of Bavaria in Munich), and both achieving wide recognition through their publications. The two composers were known to one another, moreover: Lassus recommended Regnart to the Saxon royal court in 1580, though Regnart did not move to Dresden. No contemporary composer matched Lassus’s output of works in different genres, though with his German songs, Italian-style villanelle, and sacred music, Regnart came closer than most. Regnart’s music can be differentiated from that of Lassus, however, by his slightly more conservative approach, showing a greater interest in working out contrapuntal ideas, whereas Lassus was increasingly pithy and concerned with the rhetorical projection of the text.

   Perhaps the most unusual piece on this recording is the setting of Quare tristis es, anima mea? (‘Why are you cast down, O my soul?’—words from Psalm 42). The Psalm text is intended to be reassuring, but Regnart’s setting begins in a highly destabilized tonality, avoiding a full cadence for the first fifteen bars. When the piece does settle down, it nevertheless remains in an anxious Phrygian tonal area, associated with lamenting. Regnart evidently wished to emphasize the heaviness of the soul rather than the comfort of God in this case".

   In my opinion, this piece is really wonderful, especially by the use of chromaticisms and its character tremendously painful, all in a clearly Franco-Flemish style.

   This performance is awesome, precisely because it highlights the plaintive character and the use of "Musica ficta". The voices are fantastic, with fantastic tunning and sonority.

Essential disc for provide insight into the music of this, unfortunately, little known author.

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