Utrecht Early Music Festival 2018

[Que]

Vox Luminis is very high on my favourites list. 

Q

[Florestan]

Vox Luminis, an ensemble led by Lionel Meurnier, performed Josquin's  l'homme armé (6 tone) mass and some motets.  They are 8 men and two women, in black, wearing ties, which gives them an air of  seriousness and nobility.

Nobility and seriounness are also the right words for their performance style. As are  expressiveness and control.   

But maybe the most interesting thing to me is that they form notes in a small and introspective way - a way which, I'd wager , owes a lot to Rebecca Stewart.  This is exactly the singing style I like.

This has been the best concert of the festival so far, and they are an exciting new discovery for me.

Looks like you have the time of your life! Although I am not that much into this kind of music I can only envy you! I wish an equivalent all-Romantic Music Festival existed, and I wish I could attend it.

More power to you! Enjoy it to the last bit!

[Mandryka]

Graindelavoix sang music by Josquin, Gombert, Peter Philips Obrecht and others, all interleaved with recitals of poems and a prose monologue by Samuel Beckett. The singers and their leader Bjorn moved in a stylised way. There was a single prop.

The singing was good, more than good. There was more variety than in the previous Schmelzer concert. There was a Gombert Agnus Dei which was really magical. He has a red head mezzo in the group who is exceptional.

The Beckett was recited by two unimpressive  actresses , inexpressive. What a shame!

More of a shame was the presentation. I saw everything very well. But the old church venue is not raked, so 90% of the audience would have seen very little, and this would have seriously compromised their appreciation. Why on earth wasn't it filmed and projected real time?

Schmelzer gave a talk on Beckett before the event. No questions allowed. He said that there was a ritual element to Beckett's art which reminded him of the compline. This wasn't expanded on.

There was a lack of panache and polish - in Edinburgh and Avignon this is the sort of thing you see on the fringe. The promise was greater than the delivery.

But there is promise there, and imagination and originality. And Schmelzer  inspires his singers very well. So hats off to him.

[Mandryka]

Catalina Vicens is a keyboard player who also directs a little group of vocalists and instrumentalists called Servir Antico.  She has a portative organ based in some  unexplained way  on an alarpiece by Jan van Eyck. It sounds great! Very dissonant harmonies.

They played early music songs celebrating women. Their style reminded me of Mala Punica. But they're not as good, because the singers seemed charmless and drab. I thought I was going to die of boredom.

[Mandryka]

Anna Danilevskaia plays a vielle,  which is a sort of little gamba. She is a scholar who has researched a couple of blind vielle players who worked for the court in 15th century burgundy , leaving transcriptions for voice and accompaniment of songs by Dufay,  Compere , Ockeghem etc.

She has created a group called Solazzo Ensemble,  two vielle players, a lutenist and three singers. They gave a morning concert today.

This was music and music making of the highest standard. One of the best concerts I've heard in Utrecht.

[Mandryka]

I've just come out of an all Dufay concert by Graindelavoix and I'm  killing time before the start of a Josquin mass in a cafe.

I think I fell asleep in the Dufay.

Schmelzer makes the music like gentle wind on a pond, although there's lots of intersecting activity  it's really pretty static. Furthermore the colours of his singers are like thick oil pastels, I don't like it, it's like some sort of nauseating cake, black forest gateau and strawberry chescake.

But then once or twice, a big tidal wave comes on the mill pond, everything comes to life,, everything becomes more turbulent. I like that.

But no, I think the concert was a pretty resounding flop.

[Que]

Sounds like you're not a Graindelavoix/Schmelzer fan... 

Q

[Mandryka]

Well I enjoy some things more than others - but this may be more a reflection of me and my mood.

I saw two things yesterday. Manfred Cordes' group Weser Renaissance Bremen sang Josquin motets and Missa Ave Maris Stella. I found the concert professional, capable and rather uninspiring.

And I saw a Bjorn Schmelzer film called OUTLANDISH. It was a couple of hours long but I didn't stay for the duration.

The film opened with a motet being sung over an image of a less than turbulent  sea, which made me think I was onto something when I compared his style in Dufay to waves  and water. 

[Mandryka]

By the way, one of the distinctive things about Schmelzer is that he uses extremely big gestures when he conducts. The first time I saw it I thought it was a joke, that he was taking the piss, but no, that's his way.

I've met quite a few people since I've been here, musicians from all over Holland.  They say that he always needs to put himself right at the centre of attention, hence the dramatic gestures to mark a pulse.   

I always like iconoclasts, I think it's a good thing. So on the whole I feel very positive about Schmelzer. 

He makes me think of  Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Both workaholics,  both "ordinary" in manner, like ordinary kids - Schmelzer looks and speaks  like someone I used to do drugs with when I was 18! And both touched by genius, full of promise. I don't think Schmelzer has made his Berlin Alexanderplatz yet, but I bet he will, and then some.

[Mandryka]

Doulce Mémoire (Denis Raison -Dadre) are a little band of recorder and viol players, and a countertenor. They gave a concert of   music based on a renaissance song called De Tous Biens Playne (what does Playne mean?) It was in a splendid intimate hall called Gasthuis Leeuwenbergh - Utrecht is very well equipped for concerts.

How civilised! An hour long morning concert based on one 15th century pop song! I like the refined quietness of Doulce Mémoire very much, I like the voice of their singer and the tone of the viols (which needed tuning every 10 minutes. )  I'm prepared to tolerate the recorders!

[Florestan]

Doulce Mémoire (Denis Raison -Dadre) are a little band of recorder and viol players, and a countertenor. They gave a concert of   music based on a renaissance song called De Tous Biens Playne (what does Playne mean?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_tous_biens_plaine

[prémont]

Doulce Mémoire (Denis Raison -Dadre) are a little band of recorder and viol players, and a countertenor. They gave a concert of   music based on a renaissance song called De Tous Biens Playne (what does Playne mean?)

Playne means full, I think, it is just old spelling.

De tous biens playne est ma maistresse =

something like

My lady is full of all good things (properties).

[Mandryka]

Playne means full, I think, it is just old spelling.

De tous biens playne est ma maistresse =

something like

My lady is full of all good things (properties).

Ah I never thought. I was thinking it might be to do with pleindre. Thanks.

[Mandryka]

Tasto Solo performed  music from their CD Le chant de l'echequier in a church.

I was near the back  I couldn't see them. At first I thought I'd made a mistake, and this music doesn't suit such a large venue.

But then, half way through  they performed a long Binchois song which was so moving I'm sure the whole audience forgot to breathe for 10 minutes. And from then on the concert took off.

Very attractive programme of happy music by Dufay and sad music by Binchois.

[Mandryka]

Cappella Pratensis sang a series of songs and motets and mass movements either by or inspired by Ockeghem. 

This was an amazing recital, unforgettable.   Beautiful refined singing.

I enjoyed this more than their Obrecht mass in Antwerp a fortnight ago, may because the mass has more large scale  four part two on a part music.

Today I could hear their debt to Rebecca Stewart more clearly.