Mis "10" de 2012

   Aprovechando que por fin estoy liberado de ciertas obligaciones que me han mantenido ocupado al 100% desde comienzos del año, quiero dejar constancia aquí de esos discos que me han marcado en este 2012, esos discos que, novedades discográficas de este año, hayan supuesto lo mejor en este 2012 en el ámbito en que me muevo musicalmente. No es que sea yo muy dado a este tipo de listas, sobre todo porque a veces son muy injustas y resultan totalmente insuficientes, pero creo que es de justicia destacar aquellos discos que a uno le han emocionado, cambiando la cara, o sencillamente, mejorado como persona. Conste que es una lista totalmente subjetiva, fruto de mis gustos más personales y cuyas diez plazas resultan más que insuficientes para todos los discos estupendos que se han grabado este año y que seguramente mercieran estar en dicha lista.

   Dicho lo cual, he aquí mis "10" para este 2012:

Agostino Steffani [1654-1728].
Mission.
Cecilia Bartoli & I Barocchisti - Diego Fasolis.
Decca Classics [4784732] [CD] / [743605] [DVD].

   

   Este era, sin duda, uno de los dicos más esperados del año, por muchos músicos, melómanos... pero sobre todo por las horadas de fanáticos seguidores de la mezzo romana. ¡Y a fe que la espera mereció la pena! Un disco absolutamente memorable -como ya nos tiene acostumbrados la Bartoli en sus registros discográficos-. Una de obra de arte total, desenterrando del olvido -no absoluto, pero sí innecesario- al que la fantástica obra de Steffani estaba sometida. Aquí hay todo lo mejor de Bartoli en lo vocal, pero también en lo expresivo. La aparición de Philippe Jaroussky es todo un valor añadido al producto, y la fantástica aportación en el aparato instrumental de I Barocchisti resulta todo un acierto, destacando mucho el aspecto teatral de la música de Steffani. Una conjunción sublime.
El DVD, por su parte, nos aporta todo lo mejor del disco, pero añade algunos fragmentos sublimes más para el disfrute, además de presentar unos espacios, paisajes y teatralidad fabulosos en lo visual. Maravilloso trabajo, que complementa al CD, convirtiéndose en una dupla absolutamente imprescindible para cualquiera.

Antonio Vivaldi [1678-1741].

The Four Seasons.

Aitor Hevia & Forma Antiqva - Aarón Zapico.

Winter & Winter [910 185-2].

   "Sí, bueno, otras 'estaciones' más". Esto es lo que diría alguien que no ha escuchado el disco que ahora reseñamos. Sobre todo, porque de ser así, lo que saldría de la boca de dicha persona sería lo siguiente: "no, definitavmenete no son otras 'estaciones' más". Y creo que ese, en parte, es el mejor elogio que se le puede dar a este disco. Sí, porque si tenemos en cuenta la ingente cantidad de versiones de la celebérrima obra vivaldiana, y que la versión de los asturianos más universales pueden colocarse, si ningun tipo de compleos, entre las primeros opciones deseadas para su escucha, ya lo estamos diciendo todo. ¿Y qué tiene este disco para llegar tan alto? Pues -y dejando a un lado los "interludios" modernizados de Caine y compañía- encontramos aquí energía a raudales, frescura, dinamismo, una lectura profunda, colmada e contrastes, vital, que incita casi a la danza. El papel del solista es casi estroférico y el "acompañamiento" -si es que puede llamarse así- por parte del conjunto barroco es asombroso, destacando, una vez más, su profuso, colorista, omnipresente y deslumbrante continuo. No, no son unas 'estaciones' más, así que ya saben...

Tomás Luis de Victoria [1548-1611].

Officium Defunctorum.

Collegium Vocale Gent - Philippe Herreweghe.

Phi [LPH005].

   El 2012 ha sido un año muy ajetreado y creativo para el gran Philippe Herreweghe, que ha creado para su sello Phi la friolera de cuatro discos -nada menos que BACH [dos veces], Victoria y Beethoven han desfilado por ellos-. Podría haber destacado aquí su maravillosa versión de la H-Moll Messe, pero creo que aún este disco supera la cima creadora del bueno de Herreweghe. Y es que el belga transita aquí por la que es, casi con total seguridad, la obra cumbre en la producción del "abulense universal". Una lectura contenida, que nos acerca mucho a la retórica de finales del Renacimiento -sí, porque el maestro es sabedor de que el texto no puede pasarse por encima, que es valor indiscutible para el desarrollo ulterior de la pieza-. La sonoridad elegida es de tipo "belga-holandés-, la que acostumbra a utilizar, destacando las sonoridades graves y la carnosidad de las líneas. Creo que hay realmente mucha expresividad, gran intensidad en este registro. Se detiene en cada afecto -sí, en Victoria también los hay-, en cada figura, en cada pasión. Una visión carnal del sufrimiento. Completa el disco con algunas obras de esas que dejan sin respiración, en versiones igualmente fascinantes y referenciales. Pocas veces podrán escuchar una visión tan melancólica y expresiva del Versa est in luctum a 6 u otra tan imponente del Taedet anima meam a 4.

Jean Richafort [c.1480-c.1547].

Reqviem & other sacred works.

Cinquecento [Renaissance Vokal].

Hyperion [CDA67959].

   Cualquier nueva versión del Reqviem [in memoriam Josquin] a 6 de Jean Richafort, pasa ya casi directamente a engrosar cualquier lista de imprescindibles, porque la belleza y factura de la pieza así lo obligan. Estamos, en mi opinión, ante una de las mejores obras, no solo del Renacimiento europeo, sino de la historia de la música occidental. Si uno no se remueve y desestructura con el Introitus o el Kyrie es que algo falla. Música de tal belleza que consigue casi elevarte a la más absoluta de las alturas. Las seis voces que componen Cinquecento se detienen en una interpretación calmada, contenida, en la que destacan las sonoridades graves. Siguen en cierta manera la línea de Paul Van Nevel y su Huelgas Ensemble -cuya versión, inevitablemente viene a la cabeza de uno, pues sigue siendo para mí la mejor-, sobre todo en el carácter, la manera de destacar todo lo que entraña la pieza y la sonoridad, aunque respetan las tesituras y no persiguen tanto la tensión en las disonancias. Consiguen una versión que se sitúa justamemte detrás de la grabada por los belgas. El disco se completa con una colección maravillosa de preciosos motetes, algunos de los cuales nos descubren a maestros muy poco transitados hoy día y con una calidad compositiva más que importante. Como versión que complementa a la de Van Nevel tiene un lugar indiscutible en cualquier musicoteca de los apasionados por la polifonía franco-flamenca.

In Paradiso [Música sacra italiana del siglo XVII].

Raquel Andueza, soprano & Jesús Fernández Baena, tiorba

Anima e Corpo [AeC002].
 

   Este maravilloso disco fue, en su día, objeto de una amplia crítica en este mismo blog, por lo que me remito a dejar aquí mis entregadas palabras, que no pueden menos de inclinarse ante la belleza y cercanía a la perfección de este registro. Eso sí, no sin antes dejar claro lo que este disco puede provocar, resumido sin más en la siguiente frase: "un disco que hace mejor al que lo escucha".

William Byrd [1540-1623].
The Great Service & other English music.

The Cardinall's Musick - Andrew Carwood.

Hyperion [CDA67937].

   14. Este es el número con que viene representado este disco en la The Byrd Edition que el conjunto británico lleva a cabo desde hace años. Se dice pronto, catorce discos ya dedicados al genio británico más elevado en lo musical que ha dado la historia. Solo por este hecho, ya debemos regocijarnos, pues el saber que TCM continuaran con su empresa supone toda una alegría para los apasionados por la música de Byrd -entre los que me encuentro; lo confieso: es una debilidad-. En este disco se alejan ya del repertorio sacro latino que copara sus trece anteriores grabaciones. Para ello, se centra en la que posiblemente es la gran obra sacra en inglés de Byrd: su The Great Service. Desde mi punto de vista, Byrd no alcanza en sus obras en lengua vernácula la excelencia y las cotas geniales a las que llega en su corpus latino -por numerosas razones que nos llevaría mucho relatar; quizá en una entrada pueda reflexionar sobre ello-, pero sigue tratándose de piezas de una factura fascinante. El grado simbiosis entre TCM y Byrd es tal, que comprenden la obra del británico casi a la perfección. Contando en su plantilla con los cantantes habituales en otras grabaciones de la serie, consiguen una lectura brillante, enérgica pero contenida, elegante y devota. Pura esencia british.

Passion & Resurrection [Music inspired by Holy Week].

Stile Antico.

Harmonia Mundi [HMU807555].

   Pocos conjuntos vocales en el panorama de la música clásica están al nivel actual del que goza Stile Antico. A pesar de su tremenda juventud, el conjunto va ya por su séptimo álbum. Un disco inspirado en temática sacra, concretamente en la Semana Santa, en el que encontramos piezas de compositores británicos, franco-flamencos, españoles e italianos, todo un tour de force de recopilación estilística en pleno Renacimiento. Además, el registro contiene una pieza contemporánea compuesta ex profeso para el conjunto por John McCabe, grabado en primicia mundial aquí. La manera en que estas magníficas voces transitan por el repertorio del XVI europeo es simplemente fascinante y evocadora en grado sumo. Su brillantez, sonoridad, expresividad, empaste, equilibrio, afinación... son realmente admirable y denotan un talento abrumador, pero sobre todo muchas horas de duro trabajo. La calidad artística de este conjunto y sus continuos éxitos y aciertos les están catapultando a la cima de los conjunto vocales británicos, o lo que es lo mismo -con permiso de algún que otro belga-, a la del mundo. Todos sus discos son un ejemplo -sí, desde aquel ya "lejano" Music for Compline-, pero la calidad de este le hace colocarse probablemente con el mejor, junto a Heavenly Harmonies.

David Kellner [1670-1748].

Phantasia [Music for Baroque lute].

José Miguel Moreno.

Glossa Music [GCD 920112].

   Cuando uno artista de un talento abrumador tarda tanto en grabar un disco, a uno le da por reflexionar sobre ciertos aspectos. Es quizá interesante plantearse como a mayor talento también es mayor la reticencia al "éxito", al estar en las casas de los demás, es decir, el sentido de la honestidad y humildad asciende poderosamente. Si tenemos en cuenta el caso de Jose Miguel Moreno, nos damos cuenta de lo ínfimo de su discografía -aunque absolutamente eximia-, sobre todo si la comparamos con la cantidad de años de carrera que lleva a sus espaldas. Por otra parte, a uno le lleva a plantearse que quizá cuida, mima y espera cada grabación como si fuese la última, no registrando un álbum hasta no estar plenamente convencido de sus posibilidades. No sé cuales son las circunstancias reales de tan larga espera -diría que de ocho años, nada menos-, pero su regreso ha sido glorioso. Y es que Moreno es, a mi parecer, una de las figuras rutilantes en la interpretación de cuerdas pulsadas a nivel mundial, pudiendo compararlo con algunos de los nombres más inmensos, como el Paul O'Dette o el msmo Hopkinson Smith. No les tiene nada que envidiar. Sus registros anteriores avalan sus interpretaciones tanto en vihuela, guitarra española, tiorba o, como en este caso, el laúd barroco. Ya en aquel maravilloso Ars Melancholiae dio buena cuenta de lo que es capaz de hacer con un laúd en su  manos. Vuelve ahora con la figura de David Kellner, un maestro apenas tranistado entre los "pulsistas", por lo concreto y breve de su obra. Graba aquí la colección Auserlesene Lauten-Stücke [1747] en primicia mundial, con 17 piezas de una belleza fascinante. Aquí hay de todo, sobre todo phantasias, pero también piezas de danza de todo tipo, y una chaconne -con la que se abre el disco- que esté entre lo más bello de la producción laudística de todo el Barroco europeo. La interpretación de Moreno es elegante, delicada, cuidada, con una pulsación brillante, tersa, límida. La emoción que contiene estas interpretaciones es absolutamente deslumbrante. Pura esencia del láud.

Jacob Clement [1510-1555].
Jacob Clement.

Huelgas Ensemble - Paul Van Nevel.

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi [88697780692].
 

   Jacob Clement, más conocido como Clemens non Papa -me ahorraré la célebre anécdoa de su nombre-, es sin duda uno de los maestros franco-flamencos más fascinantes, con una obra más importante y sobre el que se ha transitado bastante menos de lo deseado. Ante esto, una grabación monográfica de su obra, y ante que la interpretación estuviera en manos del conjunto que quizá mejor interprete este repertorio franco-flamenco de los siglos XV y XVI, uno solo puede regocijarse. Era para muchos un disco esperadísimo, precisamente por las dos razones que acabo de esgrimir. La música derrocha belleza, emoción, complejidad, retórica, y se encuentran aquí algunas piezas que están entre lo mejor de su producción. Van Nevel y los suyos -extraordinaria plantilla vocal- se acercan a casi todos los géneros que hay en su repertorio, de la mano de chansons, motetes y misas, en las que las voces transitan entre tres, cuatro, cinco y seis partes. Desde luego, me parece un absoluto ejemplo de cómo acercarse a este repertorio, así como todo un muestrario del "sonido Huelgas" tan característico y qué tanto nos gusta. Van Nevel no se detiene ante la lucha de modos, disonancias y el uso de semitonía subintellecta. Un disco depara momentos fascinantes, en los que uno casi se eleva, y otros en los que vuelve a la tierra para quedarse abolutamente asombrado por la facilidad de hacer tan sencillo y hermoso lo que es tan extremadamente complejo. Han vuelto a hacerlo.

Jean Mouton [c.1459-1522].

Missa Dictes moy toutes voz pensées.

The Tallis Scholars - Peter Phillips.

Gimell Records [CDGIM 047].

   Cualquier novedad discográfica que proceda de las mente de Peter Phillips y las voces de su magnífico The Tallis Scholars es siempre un evento artístico de magnitudes muy considerables. Este año el bueno de Jean Mouton, que pasa por ser uno de los mayores talentos de las cinco generaciones de franco-flamencos, está empezando a ser considerado como merece, a tenor de las novedades discográficas alrededor de su figura -este y otro registro, realmente bueno, de The Brabant Ensemble y Stephen Rice-. Estamos aquí ante un disco absolutamente asombroso, y lo es por mucho motivos: la calidad del repertorio, la novedad en buena parte del mismo, la deslumbrante calidad interpretativa... que hacen del mismo un álbum absolutamente indispensable. De tres a ocho partes, así, con una facilidad pasmosa, de dobles coros a contrapuntos intrincados extremos, del intimismo más delicado a la grandilocuencia más contenida. Este es un disco multidireccional, pero que nos llega como un continuum, sin aristas. La visión con la que Phillips se acerca a estas obras es la habitual en su grupo, marca de la casa, con dos voces por parte -aunque aquí utiliza en varias piezas solo una por parte, sobre todo en las que son a 8-, con limpidez de líneas, equilibrio, afinación inmejorable, brillantez en sopranos y tenores, altos poderosos/as, bajos omnipresentes... puro British sound y sobre todo puro Tallis sound, pues ellos en buena parte han sido los encargados de crear ese sonido "panbritánico". Un disco que para muchos dice ser ya el mejor de toda su discografía. No sé si puedo llegar a aventurarme tanto, pero sí diré que estamos ante uno de los de arriba, que quizá se situemos entre los cinco mejores, lo cual, teniendo en cuenta la ingente discografía y la calidad de la misma, es una garantía de éxito y disfrute.

The Choir Project al día [12-I-2013]

Claudio Monteverdi [1567-1643]: Messa a quattro voci da cappella.
Ensemble Elyma - Gabriel Garrido.
Monteverdi's mass: between sumptuousity and minimalism.

    In words by John Whenham:
"For most music lovers Monteverdi’s church music begins and ends with the sumptuous Vespers settings that he published, together with a Mass, in 1610. However, the Vespers of 1610, astonishing though they are, form only part of Monteverdi’s total output of church music and belong, paradoxically, to a period in which we have little evidence of his work as a church musician.

    Monteverdi’s career as a professional musician falls into two periods of almost equal length. From 1590 or 1591 to 1612 he was employed as a household musician at the court of Vincenzo Gonzaga, ruler of the north Italian duchy of Mantua, and rose to become court choirmaster there in 1601. The extent of Monteverdi’s involvement in church music at Mantua is not clear. He was not regularly involved with the musical establishment of Santa Barbara, the ducal chapel, which was headed by Giacomo Gastoldi from 1582 to 1609, and the majority of his publications from the Mantuan period are of madrigals and opera. Nevertheless, it is quite likely that he wrote sacred music to be performed in the smaller chapels within the ducal palace or as spiritual chamber music. It has been suggested, too, that both court and chapel musicians may have joined forces at least once a year in Santa Barbara to celebrate the feast day of its patron saint, and that some at least of the music that appears in the 1610 volume may have been written for these occasions.

   Equally, though, the music of the 1610 volume, published by Monteverdi at a time of growing dissatisfaction with conditions at Mantua, may have been intended simply to demonstrate that he was employable as a church musician. The volume contains settings for the two services for which elaborate music was most often used in the late Renaissance. The Mass, the ritual reenactment of the Last Supper, was the central celebration of the church day, and Monteverdi made great play, in the 1610 volume, of writing a setting which emulated the conservative style of Palestrina and his contemporaries. His settings of five psalms, hymn, Magnificat and motets for Vespers, the main evening service of the Catholic Church, are quite different, and use all the resources of the new music of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries—rich harmonies, expressive operatic solos and elaborately ornamented music to be performed by virtuoso singers and instrumentalists. The 1610 volume can, then, be seen as a portfolio for prospective employers. Certainly, when Monteverdi took copies of the newly published volume to Rome to present them to Pope Paul V, he spent nearly three months in the city, cultivating the acquaintance of an influential group of cardinals. And in 1611 some of his psalm settings were performed in Modena Cathedral, though, according to a Modenese chronicler, they caused ‘disgust’ among everyone who heard them.

    Following the death of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Monteverdi was summarily dismissed from Mantua in July 1612 by the new duke, Francesco Gonzaga. It seems that he had unwisely hinted that he might be able to obtain a better position elsewhere. For a year he was without regular employment, though performances of some of his music in Milan led to rumours that he was seeking the position of choirmaster at the cathedral there. He was fortunate, therefore, that the post of choirmaster of St Mark’s, Venice, fell vacant in the summer of 1613, and doubly fortunate that the procurators of St Mark’s, faced with falling musical standards in the church, decided to look outside Venice for a new appointee. For his audition on 1 August 1613 Monteverdi directed a Mass of his own—probably the one included in the 1610 volume—and his appointment was approved unanimously by the procurators. He remained at Venice, deriving a good deal of satisfaction from the honour and respect that he enjoyed there, until his death in 1643.

    In Monteverdi’s day St Mark’s was not the cathedral of Venice, but the doge’s chapel. As such it was at the centre of interaction between church and state, for in Venice, major religious feast days were inextricably intertwined with the celebration of the city’s history and sense of identity. Moreover, important guests of the doge attended services at St Mark’s, where music of appropriate splendour was used to impress them; and the choir, with their choirmaster, was also responsible for entertaining the doge and his guests at state banquets; indeed, there were occasions when half the St Mark’s choir would be engaged in singing at a banquet while the other half was left to sing Vespers in the church.

    The musical establishment that Monteverdi inherited included a main choir of about twenty men, including soprano castratos, who were responsible for singing the most elaborate of the music heard at St Mark’s; in addition, the church boasted a group of boy singers who performed plainsong and the occasional short polyphonic mass on weekdays, a group of some sixteen instrumentalists, and two organists (the church had two fixed and another two portable organs). The music that the choir sang (and, thus, that the choirmaster wrote for them) was governed by an elaborate set of rules specifying the types of music to be used for particular occasions. And, to complicate matters still further, St Mark’s had its own liturgy, independent of the Roman rite formalised by the Council of Trent (the Tridentine rite), which meant that some of its texts were used only at St Mark’s and at a limited number of similar institutions. A case in point is the so-called Vespero delle Cinque Laudate (Vespers of the Five Laudate) in which all five psalms began with a variant of the verb laudare (to praise). This service does not appear in the Tridentine rite at all, but was used at St Mark’s for Vespers on many of the most important feast days of the year; and though we customarily associate St Mark’s with music of great splendour and virtuosity, surviving collections of the Cinque Laudate psalms (none of them by Monteverdi) are rather restrained in character and conservative in style.

    The style of music most often associated with St Mark’s is that involving spatial effects between two or more groups of singers and/or instrumentalists. This style, exemplified particularly in the music of Giovanni Gabrieli, was used at St Mark’s for Mass settings and ceremonial motets, and might involve the main choir singing at ground level, with instrumentalists and solo singers placed either in the organ lofts at each side of the chancel, or in the alcoves (nicchie), stacked like opera boxes, just behind the choir screen. At first sight, the many eight-part Vespers psalms involving two groups of four voices that were written for St Mark’s seem to belong to the same tradition, especially since custom dictated that the choir should sing Vespers in eight parts on days of particular solemnity, when the great golden altarpiece—the Pala d’Oro—was uncovered and, more often than not, the doge himself was present for the service. In fact, though, the two choirs who sang Vespers—one a group of soloists, the other a larger, ripieno, group—customarily stood together in a large pulpit at the front right of the choir screen, just as Canaletto depicted them in the mid eighteenth century. Since only about twelve or thirteen singers could fit into the pulpit we have a clear indication of the size of choir normally used for Vespers at St Mark’s. It is clear, too, that all the musicians, whether situated in the pulpit, in the organ lofts or in the nicchie, directed their performances not into the nave of the church, but into the chancel, where the priests, the doge, senators and important visitors were seated.

    It should be emphasized that we only have clear evidence of the way in which Vespers was normally sung at St Mark’s; however, those of Monteverdi’s psalm settings that call for instrumental accompaniment could not have been performed from the pulpit alone; the instrumentalists were probably located in one of the organ galleries along with the player who was accompanying on the organ. We know, too, that the service of Vespers was occasionally celebrated on a grand scale at St Mark’s: the revised version of Sansovino’s Venetia città nobilissima, published in the early years of the seventeenth century, includes this description of First Vespers for Christmas: ‘[On Christmas Eve Vespers] is celebrated with the sweetest sounds of voices and instruments by the salaried musicians of the church and by others hired specially to make a greater number, since on that evening they sing in eight, ten, twelve and sixteen choirs [sic] to the wonder and amazement of everyone, and especially of foreign visitors, who declare that they have never heard music as rare, or as remarkable in other parts of the world.’

    St Mark’s was not the only scene of Monteverdi’s activity in Venice. As the city’s leading musician he was also regularly invited to direct music for important services in other churches where different performance practices obtained and the Tridentine rite was followed. To take just one example: in 1620 the Flemish diplomat Constantin Huygens witnessed him directing his own music for Vespers for the Feast of St John the Baptist (24 June) in a church that has been identified as S Giovanni Elemosinario, near the Rialto; the music was sung by twelve singers and accompanied by theorbos, cornetts, bassoons, a basso di viola, organs and other instruments.

    A good deal of the sacred music that Monteverdi wrote for Venice, including some important works mentioned in his letters and other documents, is now lost. Apart from a few works included in anthologies, most of what survives was published in two collections, the Selva morale e spirituale, issued by Monteverdi himself in 1640/41 and dedicated to Eleonora Gonzaga, daughter of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga and widow of the Emperor Ferdinand II (1587–1637), and the Messa a quattro voci et salmi, issued posthumously in 1650 by the publisher Alessandro Vincenti. Both are monumental publications summing up the thirty years of Monteverdi’s work in Venice and both contain multiple settings of Vespers texts. The two books include a wealth of music and a wide range of styles, from conservative Mass settings to psalms and motets that use the most up-to-date song styles of the 1620s and ’30s; for even in his old age Monteverdi continued to explore new ideas.

    The Selva morale of 1640/41 contains both settings of Latin texts for use in the liturgy and spiritual and moral madrigals. The volume was intended by Monteverdi not only as a summing up of his work at Venice, but also as a resource book for choirmasters, who could draw from it as few or as many settings as they needed for a particular service. Like most Venetian musicians he had regard to the fact that most choirmasters worked within the Tridentine rite and not the special liturgy of St Mark’s. This recording presents the main items that would have been performed in polyphony—five psalms, the Office Hymn and Magnificat—for First Vespers of Christmas in the Tridentine liturgy, a service that would have been celebrated on Christmas Eve. It includes eight-part settings of the kind called for in St Mark’s on the important occasions on which the Pala d’Oro would have been opened and the doge present in the church.

    Messa à 4 da Cappella.
    This setting of the Ordinary of the Mass is one of only three by Monteverdi that survive complete, though many more must have been lost if we are to believe Monteverdi’s comment in a letter of 2 February 1634 that he had to write a new Mass every year for Christmas Eve. Although sections of Masses by Monteverdi in an up-to-date concerted style survive, the three complete works are written in a style which had, by the 1630s, become known as the stile antico (the old style): that is, they are written deliberately in the restrained a cappella style of the late sixteenth century.

    It has been suggested that the motive with which all the main movements of the Selva morale Mass begin is drawn from the beginning of the madrigal La vaga pastorella, published by Monteverdi in his first book of madrigals (1587) and that the Mass dates from around this period. The thematic material is indeed similar to the opening of the madrigal, but the apparently effortless flow of the polyphony suggests that the Mass itself belongs to a period of mastery rather than apprenticeship.

    The concerted Mass sections printed in the Selva morale include settings of three texts—Crucifixus, Et resurrexit and Et iterum venturus est—the second of which includes violins as well as continuo accompaniment. Together, these three sections form a complete paragraph of the Creed. The original context for which they were written is uncertain, but Monteverdi indicates that they can be used, for variety, in place of the corresponding sections of the a cappella Mass."

    For me, Selva Morale e Spirituale is one of the most wonderful sacred music collection in the history of music. This music is simply incredible, perfect exemplification of the genius of the Cremonese master.
When I listened this Mass for the first time, I was surprised to its relative simplicity, lack of ornaments and bombastic instrumentation; only voices and solo instruments to bend the bassvs.

    The first performance I listened was Cantus Cölln [Konrad Jugnhänel]. I like so much, in fact, but I find in this performance a wonderful expressiveness and passion. The voices in this recording are a curious mix, with singers with different vocal characters -"a priori", but the union is really exquisite. I thik this a really mediterranean version, for me the most adequate to the "monteverdian" character. 

• Album.
• Performer.
• Face page.
• Score:
• Kyrie.
• Gloria.
• Credo.
• Sanctus.
• Benedictus.
• Agnus Dei.

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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¡Feliz 2013! / Happy 2013!

   Pues sí, otra vez más llegamos al final de un año. Uno que se va y otro que le sigue sin solución de continuidad. Así es.

  Como siempre en estas fechas, es tiempo para echar la vista atrás, revisar, recolectar, reflexionar, en definitiva, hacer balance. Creo que para ||:doblebarra:|| este ha sido un año muy positivo. Un año en el que se ha vuelto con energías renovadas, en el que la actividad ha subido considerablemente, un año en el que la colaboración con The Choir Project ha sido uno de los pilares fundamentales que han sustentado la actividad, un año en el que se han creado secciones nuevas, se han hechos críticas de conciertos y discos, en el que veo cómo artistas de renombre me leen satisfechos ante los comentado sobre sus excelentes trabajos, en el que el número de visitas es regular y elevado, un año en el que han nacido la página y el grupo del blog en Facebook, con gran aceptación y un número realmente elevado de miembros -¡el grupo supera los 1220!-. Un año para estar orgulloso del trabajo realizado aquí, y que solo pretende ser una muestra honesta, sincera y apasionada de lo que mueve a diario, de la música que me ayuda a dar pasos en la vida, en definitiva, de aquello que me emociona y apasiona a cada punto del día.

   Por todo ello, y porque sin los lectores este humilde blog no sería absolutamente nada, quiero mostrar mi total agradecimiento una y otra vez para todos aquellos que han dedicado unos minutos de sus ocupadas vidas en pararse aquí, en intentar aprender algo nuevo -si es que eso he conseguido en algún momento-, en tener en cuenta algunas de mis humildes recomendaciones, en deleitarse con alguno de los fragmentos aquí expuestos, en fin, en dejar que la música entrase por la puerta de sus vidas, al menos para quedarse un ratito.

   Dicho esto, solo me queda mostraros todo ese agradecimiento y desearos lo mejor en estas fiestas. Os deseo todo lo mejor en vuestras vidas, muchas felicidad y que la vida os depare todo lo mejor rodeados de música, que nos emocione, llene y eleve. Así pues: 

The Choir Project al día [29-XII-2012]

William Byrd [1540-1623]: Mass for four voices.
The Tallis Scholars - Peter Phillips.
Catholic mass in an Anglican country.

   Peter Phillips says about Byrd and his masses:

"William Byrd is known to have been a tenaciously loyal Catholic in a country which was more or less militantly Protestant. In the last resort Byrd could have been sent to the stake for his beliefs and, as a member of the Chapel Royal Choir, he was always likely to attract the attention of the Protestants at court. Indeed from 1585 onwards he was continuously cited for recusancy: his house in Harlington was several times searched for incriminating literature. He and his family were yearly expected to pay crippling fines on account of their religion -in 1587 it was £200- but it seems that Byrd had sufficiently powerful friends at court for this sum usually to be waived. It is possible that the Queen herself directly protected him [For further details see Joseph Kerman's article on Byrd in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980)].

   It took some courage, therefore, for a composer to set Latin texts at all at that time. Actually to publish these compositions took a great deal more, yet it was necessary to publish them if the many covert recusant chapels were to be provided with up-to-date music for their services. Byrd published his three Mass-settings between c.1593 and c.1595 separately, in very small books and without any title-pages, though the music is coolly attributed to Byrd on all the pages [See P. Clulow, 'Publication Dates for Byrd's Latin Masses', Music and Letters, xlvii (1966)]. After Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603 the political climate seemed briefly as though it were more favourable to the Catholics. In 1605 Byrd became bolder and published a collection of motets, called the Gradualia, which abandons any pretence at concealment. However after the Catholic Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament later in that year, Byrd felt obliged to withdraw this edition of the Gradualia, and stored its pages until 1610 when he reissued it. Byrd's strength of character in proclaiming his religion is shown again in other highly incriminating gestures which he was determined to make -for instance in 1583 when he attended a house party in Berkshire to welcome two of the most celebrated of Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Henry Garnet and Robert Southwell, the poet.

   Against this background it comes as no surprise to discover that the music itself is deeply expressive. The Masses were originally written with the pragmatic purpose of giving small amateur choirs settings of important texts which they could reasonably hope to master. The five-part Mass, with its two tenor parts, seems rather ambitious in this context, but it is in fact less elaborate than many of the Latin-texted motets that he wrote at this time. Their musical style has been a source of abiding fascination to many enthusiasts for this music [For a fuller discussion see Joseph Kerman, The Masses and Motets of William Byrd, (London 1981) p. 190 ff.]. The exact mixture of influences from the past and from abroad has certainly produced an unusually direct mode of communication, despite the fact that it is also rather archaic. From the past Byrd has learned about, and remained true to, the English preference for counterpoint. If the four- and five-part Masses be compared for instance with Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli [Recorded on CDGIM 339] it will be seen that Palestrina regularly uses purely chordal passages, even though his setting overall is longer than Byrd's. Byrd, while aiming for concision, somehow managed to retain a very closely argued and efficient type of imitative counterpoint almost all the time. The best place to make this comparison is at the beginning of the respective Glorias and Creeds, where Palestrina is initially eager to move through the long texts without elaboration. From the continent Byrd obviously learnt how to pare down his use of imitation, yet the way he put this into practice here could not be confused with any continental writer's approach.

   All these details make for an unmistakable austerity of tone, and in this lies the peculiar power of these pieces. It is like a theme, to which each movement of each of the three Masses is a variation; but the theme is a mood, not a melody. Its emotional range extends from a darkness which is almost hopeless -in the four-part Agnus Dei- to a fierce defiance in adversity at Et resurrexit in the five-part Credo. During the course of these pieces Byrd clearly explored every feeling a man may have when he is fighting for something he passionately believes in, with his back to the wall. 

   The four-part Mass is generally reckoned [Ibid. p. 188 ff.] to be the earliest of the set, probably written around 1592, with the three-part following shortly after it, and the five-part coming last. The four-part is probably the most popular and intensely personal of the three, but it is arguable that it has some slight uncertainties of method, for instance at the end of the Credo which seems too short. In the five-part Mass in particular this passage -from Et in Spiritum Sanctum to the end- is substantially longer than in the four-part, and this gives a better balance to the movement as a whole. This is in contrast to the fact that in the later settings his inclination was to compress the dimensions of the four-part setting. With the three-part this may have been because his hand was forced by the difficulty of conceiving counterpoint at length for so few voices; but in the five-part the Kyrie and Gloria are set much more concisely. One must conclude that the four-part acted as a model for the others, which he improved upon where he could, with the result that his five-part Mass is one of the most convincingly argued, as well as sonorous, achievements in all his music.

   Service music of an altogether different kind is to be heard in the Mass for four voices. Although the Mass is an everyday event for a devout Catholic, the musical context for this composition was most unusual. Since the authorities had done their best to close down the Catholic tradition in England there had not been an English setting of the Mass for some decades (nor were there to be for some centuries to come). Byrd was single-handedly keeping the flame burning, inventing the style as he went along. No wonder he put everything he had into it. In addition he was taking a risk in writing and publishing music to such texts at all, a fact he clearly recognized since the original part-books have no title-pages. The style he invented was intimate, Flemish in its consistent use of imitation between the voices, with a discourse hinting at an inward life which wraps the listener into itself. The most renowned passage comes on the final page, at the words dona nobis pacem; but in reality Byrd has been preparing us for this climax on every page."

    For me it's very difficult to choose one of these three masses. Each has hundreds of special moments which are composed in the best possible. Probably, the three masses by Byrd are the best mass settings in Bristish music history.
This mass in four parts is really superb. The treatment of the same material in some movement is absolutely brilliant, but the differences in all the parts are remarkable by the Byrd's talent.
All the parts are really exciting, but the "Agnus Dei" is specially beautiful. This mass is really expressive and emotional.

    This performance is simply superb, fantastic. The colour of The Tallis Scholars is brilliant, wonderful, like a dream. Incredible pitch, balance and the wonderful stage -in Tewkesbury Abbey, with candles- are the best presentation as possible. A DVD absolutely essential for everybody, because is one of the best recordings of William Byrd's music.

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The Choir Project al día [22-XII-2012]

Thomas Tallis [c.1505-1585]: Videte miraculum a 6.
Stile Antico.
British Renaissance Christmas.

    Matthew O'Donovan says about Tudor Music for advent & Christmas:
"The backbone of this programme of Advent and Christmas music is Thomas Tallis's extraordinary, yet incomplete, Christmas mass, Missa Puer natus est. In spite of the work's phenomenal scope, there is no conclusive evidence as to its origin. One attractive theory holds that the mass was first performance by the joint forces of Queen Mary’s Chapel Royal and Philip II of Spain’s renowed Capilla Flamenca in December 1554 [Philip and Mary had married earlier in the year]. It is based on the plainchant Puer notus est nobis -the introit for Christmas Day Mass -and it has been suggested that the plainchant may well have held a double entendre for its forst hearers, as Mary was at the time erroneously believed to be pregnant with a much hoped-for heir. The works lavish and unusual seven- part scoring -and the presence of Flemish influences in Tallis’s writing- lend weight to this theory. On the other hand, the question of exactly when the first performance might have taken place presents a problem. We know that such a 'joint service' took place at St Paul's Cathedral on 2 December, but that is unlikely to have been the occasion on which this mass was performed: Tallis surely knew the difference between Advent and Christmas-and cared!
Furthermore. as one scholar has argued, it seems improbable that Tallis 'would have been so insensitive as to use a text beginning Puer natus est nobis to celebrate the Queen’s rumoured pregnancy when the sex of the child, the survival of both child and mother ans the stability of the realm would all have been causes of trepidation rather than rejoicing' [David Humphreys, “Tallis’s Suscipe quaeso”, Early Music XXVIII no. 3, August 2000, p. 508].

    Whatever the work's original purpose, what is not in doubt is its extraordinary scale and virtuosic compositional intricacy. The impression it leaves is one of immense grandeur, an effect created at least in part by the steady progression of the cantus firmus, coupled with the almost unbroken use of a seven-part texture throughout. While the manner of his imitation seems to reflect the latest trends of continental composition, the use of a different plainchant melody as a cantus firmus is very much a nod to the conventions of earlier generations. Indeed, Tallis's treatment of the plainchant is governed by an extraordinarily complex quasi-medieval numerological scheme, whereby each note is assigned a value based on its vowel in the original text. We even hear the melody in retrograde at one point during the mass. This elaborate cantus firmus treatment, Tallis’s varied palette of contrapuntal techniques and the work's carefully proportioned structure together render this magisterial mass setting one of the most strikingly unusual and innovative works of the period.

    The second thread running through the programme is the group of four Byrd Propers -the seasonal liturgicai texts set for votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary during Advent. These come from the Gradualia of 1605, the first of two books in which William Byrd set out to provide the recusant Catholic community with a comprehensive array of musical settings of the Mass Propers throughout the year. As was Byrd's custom in Gradualia, these works are models of concision; each one is perfectly proportioned and compellingly individual, yet Byrd develops his musical ideas over a comparatively short space of time, and is as economical with his use of material as he is efficient in his (mostly syllabic) word setting. Nonetheless, his masterful control of texture ensures that each point of imitation is clearly declaimed.
 

   Perhaps it is Byrd's tonal resourcefulness and his genius for striking motivic invention that stand out here, though. Tollite portas is a prime example of the latter, where the opening point -festive and fanfare-like as the King of Glory is welcomed through the gates of Heaven- gives way to an ascending scale as the psalmist asks 'Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? Rorate caeli is similarly memorable for its persistent ascending and descending motifs -as if to illustrate the believer calling up to the heavens, which, in turn, pour down justice. By contrast, the power of Ecce virgo is in the awe and wonder created by the unexpected shifts in tonality in the opening passage. These lend a palpable sense of anticipation which is only fulfilled at the final return to the tonic key of C minor as the name of the promised child -'Emmanuel- is revealed. In Ave Maria, Byrd creates another striking effect by effectively interrupting the opening platitudes of the angel's greeting -set to short, graceful phrases in the tonic minor- with an astonishingly luxuriant cadence in the relative major at the claim 'the Lord is with thee'. It is as if -just for a moment- he involves us deeply in the emotive power of those words, before re-adopting a more detached contemplative stance; the final alleluias graciously ooze simplicity itself.

    The earliest polyphonic work in the programme, Taverner's Audivi vocem de caelo, follows the common pattern of alternating polyphony and plainchant, and is, liturgically speaking, a responsory for All Saints Day, though the gospel Fassage from which the text originates is closely associated with Advent. The piece is striking for its close-knit four-part texture and narrow tessitura, making it particularly suitable for performance by upper voices alone; indeed, there is evidence to suggest that it might have been sung by a quartet of boy trebles. In other respects, the soaring musical language of this piece is very typical of Taverner's style, though there are also some interesting turns- perhaps most notably the bold passing dissonance in the very first phrase of the polyphony, which results in a peculiarly arresting start to the piece.

    If Taverner's motet is notable for its narrow compass, the opposite can be said of Robert White's expansive and virtuosic Magnificat, a work which rivals many of John Sheppard's for its huge range -well over three octaves spread over up to six parts. White's consistently inventive musical ideas and his imaginative and varied approach to melodic writing render this work a veritable contrapuntal tour de force. Again, plainchant verses alternate with counterpoint, but the contrapuntal verses themselves vary in conception: some are scored for full six-part choir, with the plainsong Magnificat tone sung as a cantus firmus in the tenor; others use smaller configurations of voices requiring subdivision of parts, changing at a chosen point in each verse, affording the composer the opportunity to exploit a wonderful diversity of different textures. At one point the plainchant moves to the mean voice; in others it disappears almost completely, left only as a fragmented memory in some points of imitation.

    The remaining two works are both based on a strict monorhythmic cantus firmus according to the old tradition: the plainchant appears in regular semibreves in the tenor voice throughout the polyphonic sections of the piece, which alternate with plainchant. The two composers, however, create startlingly different works. Videte miraculum, which opens the programme, is one of Tallis’s most sublime: through careful control of texture and harmonic rhythm, lulling use of repetition on several levels, and a masterfully-paced development of motifs, Tallis's motet effuses an extraordinary sense of rapt adoration, stillness and mystery: to hear it is to stand awestruck before a fine painting of the Virgin and Child. In Verbum caro, by contrast, Sheppard creates a radiant and sensuously enveloping sound-world spanning a huge vocal range, characterized by thrilling harmonic turns, his uniquely quirky approach to part-writing, and some truly daring sonorities.
Never one to sacrifice a thrilling effect on the altar of contrapuntal integrity, Sheppard calls upon his trebles to divide into a three-part gymel at the very end of the polyphony, in order to finish on a glorious eight-part chord."

    For me this is one the most exciting English Renaissance pieces for Christmas. The luminous harmony and brilliant lines are quasi-unique treatment in the music of Tallis.
This album is absolutely essential, for the incredible music and the wonderful performance.
The sound of Stile Antico the sound of this group is still as wonderful and as appropriate to perform English polyphony, that in few moments it seems almost unreal.
Probably it's one of the best recording of English Renaissance polypohny of recent year.

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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 [01-XII-2012]

Thomas Tallis [c.1505-1585]: Gaude gloriosa a 6.
The Tallis Scholars - Peter Phillips.
Music for Henry VIII.

    Andrew Carwood says about Tallis and this piece:

"When Henry VIII broke with the Roman Church over the issue of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon he and his advisors plunged the country into decades of unease and instability. Certainly there had been criticisms of the pre-Reformation Church and discontent over a number of political issues, but England was a remarkably devout country – in terms of liturgy and observance, as devout as they came. Henry himself was foremost amongst the defenders of the Catholic Church, proudly holding the papal title Fidei Defensor (found on British coins to this day) for writing a scathing attack on Luther and his heretical doctrines.

    Once the split was underway the fabric of society was changed through the systematic dissolution of the monasteries from 1536 onwards. The end of the religious houses and collegiate chapels meant that the people were more able to see and hear the drama of the Mass even if they could not understand its more subtle points. But in terms of liturgical change, Henry’s reforms left much unchanged – ‘Catholicism without the Pope’ as it is sometimes termed. It was only with the accession of the boy-King Edward VI and his Protestant advisors that a significant difference became obvious, with the two English Prayer Books of 1549 and 1552. On Mary’s accession Catholicism was restored, England reconciled with Rome and a Latin liturgy re-established. On her sister Elizabeth’s accession a ‘third way’ was found: a path which disliked extremism of any sort and which tried to establish a peculiarly English ecclesiastical ‘pax’.

    For composers of liturgical music these cataclysmic changes meant that they had to make a decision: whether to remain true to the old faith and stop writing music altogether (as did Nicholas Ludford) or whether to repudiate old beliefs and embrace the new (John Merbecke). Later in the century, others seemed able to cling to the old beliefs in spite of the prevailing political wind, producing music for both the English Church and motets which resonated with the recusant Catholic community (Robert Parsons and William Byrd). Thomas Tallis seems to have steered a remarkable path through the lives and whims of four sovereigns, producing music acceptable to each of them and living a long and discreet life. Amongst his output are large-scale votive antiphons for Henry VIII, shorter pieces in English for Edward VI, liturgical music for Mary, and liturgical and domestic motets in English and Latin for Elizabeth.

   Of Tallis’s early life we know very little. His first employment record is as organist of the Priory in Dover in 1532, which perhaps suggests Kent as his area of birth. Dover Priory was a small Benedictine monastery which was dissolved in 1535, suggesting that something may have been very wrong with the community (Henry’s dismantling of the smaller houses did not begin in earnest until 1536). No record exists of Tallis’s departure from Dover but we know he was in the employ of St Mary-at-Hill in Billingsgate in London during 1537/8 and that by the autumn of 1538 he took a position at Waltham Abbey in Essex. If Tallis was hoping for security at Waltham he was disappointed. 1538 was also the year that saw the dissolution of the larger monastic houses and Waltham was no exception, being closed on 23 March 1540 (the last English abbey to be dissolved). Being a recent employee, Tallis received no pension from Waltham Abbey but he did get 20s in outstanding wages plus an extra 20s. However he soon gained a place in the newly founded choir of Canterbury Cathedral – where he headed the list of twelve singing men in 1540 – but remained there for only two years, having been appointed to the most prestigious and desirable position for a professional Tudor musician – Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. The exact date of his joining is not known but he is recorded in the list of gentlemen in the lay subsidy roll of 1543/4. Perhaps this new position gave him extra security and confidence for in about 1552 he took a wife, Joan. He remained a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal for the rest of his life, rising steadily until he became its most senior member, finally being titled ‘Organist’ in the 1570s.

    Tallis died in 1585 and is buried in the Church of St Alphege in Greenwich where is found this gentle, modest and touching epitaph:

Enterred here doth ly a worthy wight,
Who for long tyme in music bore the Bell;
His name to shew was Thomas Tallys hyght;
In honest virtuous lyff he did excell.
He served long tyme in Chapell with grate prayse,
I mean King Henry and Prynce Edward’s dayes,
Quene Mary and Elizabeth our Quene.
He maryed was, though children he had none,
And lived in Love full three and thirty Yere,
With loyal Spowse, whose name yclipt was Jone,
Who here entomb’d now company him bears.
As he did lyve, so also did he dy,
In mild and quyet sort, O! happy man.
To God ful oft for mercy did he cry,
Wherefore he lyves, let Death do what he can.

    Tallis’s monumental votive antiphon, Gaude gloriosa is another piece requiring some detective work. At first glance it appears to sit firmly within the pre-Reformation style. A setting of a lengthy and rambling text to the Virgin, it is similar to those set by the older masters such as Robert Fayrfax, Ludford and Taverner. What imitation is present in the piece is modest and short-lived and the whole makes its effect through its length (461 bars), wide vocal ranges and superb control of dramatic gestures. Contrast is created by juxtaposing sections for reduced forces with settings for full choir: all characteristics typical of the pre-Reformation style.

    Yet there are good reasons for supposing a later date of composition. Compared with Tallis’s early compositions (Ave rosa sine spinis, Ave Dei Patris filia and Salve intemerata virgo), Gaude gloriosa shows a considerable advance in confidence, structure and effect. The earlier pieces can seem rather sprawling, and in some cases appear to be the work of a composer learning his craft. Indeed Ave Dei Patris filia refers to Fayrfax’s work of the same name much in the style of a student exercise. Yet Gaude gloriosa is sure-footed and eloquent, a considerable advance on his early work. It is scored for six voices rather than the more usual five-part texture and sports divided tenors, a baritone and a bass part allowing a thicker sonority than is sometimes usual for an early sixteenth-century composition. The full sections contain little respite for the singers, with hardly a bar’s rest in any voice part, lengthy and demanding writing and a fairly constant exploitation of the upper register of the top part. In short it is bigger, thicker and more well-nourished than the earlier style. The sections for solo voices are the work of a mature composer, especially in the section making use of the treble and alto gimmells (the voices split into two parts) and, perhaps most tellingly, there are no duets (de rigueur in earlier pieces). It is almost as if this is Tallis remembering an older style, recreating a sound world banished by Edward VI.

    One further point needs consideration. The text, an extended paean to the Virgin Mary is deeply Catholic. It seems unlikely that such words would have been deemed appropriate in the latter days of Henry VIII, even when he was having a more Catholic phase. Yet this text in nine sections each beginning with the word Gaude would have been just the sort of piece that Mary Tudor might have wanted to hear, one which could knit together both the old and new: a celebration of the world of her youth in its form and text and, through its very composition, a bedrock for her new Catholic order."

    In my opinion, this is one of the most impressive pieces composed by Thomas Tallis. The power and energy of this music is almost infinite. The text is a real praise to the Virgin, set in music in a way so passionate and devout, that really impresses.

    This version is absolutely wonderful. The Tallis Scholars are always a safe bet. The female voices and tenors here are absolutely incredible -like a dream-. The pitch, balance, sound and pronunciation are fantastic. This is a very complicated piece, but Peter Phillips and his singers performs this it as if it were really easy.

This is a classic album, one of the best with music by Tallis.

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