AMUZ 2019

Started by Mandryka, March 22, 2019, 01:24:37 AM

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Mandryka

https://www.amuz.be/en/reeks/laus-polyphoniae-en/

(some unusual things: A Johannes Regis mass, for example.)
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

I have tickets for Huelgas Ensemble, Ensemble Leones, Utopia, Club Medieval, Graindelavoix.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#2
Minnesang type songs from Marc Lewson's Ensemble Leones. A long and late concert. The singers are much more distinctive and engaging in concert than on record. Raitis Grigalis, which is I think the name of their main male singer is fundamentally a Bildungsbuergertum. Els Janssens-Vanmunster was impressive for her more distinctive manner of voice production,  and this,  combined with the instruments, helps them to avoid an anachronistic baroque type of presentation.  But only just. 

Nevertheless, a thoroughly enjoyable concert.



Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#3
Paul van Nevel and Huelgas Ensemble gave a concert of mass movements and motets mostly by anonymous renaissance composers, or ones I'd never heard of.  Some of the songs were special, inspired and imaginative. There was, for example, an unforgettable kyrie and Angus Dei, and a motet for female voices which was like sunlight on water.  But I question the value of many of the pieces, which seemed more well made than inspired.

Some great singers including Sabine Lutzenberger, but a high tenor, whose name I don't know, was particularly special.

A short concert,  I felt shortchanged.  And not all of it enjoyable by any means. Nevel has zero rapport with his audience- it's like there's a wall between them and us.

So a marginally inauspicious beginning to this festival for me.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Utopia are a new ensemble of experienced Flemish singers,  they have never recorded. Four men one woman. When they came on the men were in identical grey suits and blue ties and white shirts. My heart sunk. They looked like a bunch of auditors.

How wrong I was.

This was a fantastic recital of Ockeghem mass movements and motets.  And what made it work was the balance, particularly in the lower voices. Not the slightest hint of muddiness.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Graindelavoix doing mostly Busnoys. An experiment using non vocal sounds- bells and foot stamps.

The stamps worked wonderfully to mark the pulse in one song.

The bells were more problematic. The way they sing is so fluid, and bells aren't.  Sometimes they marked pitch changes, sometimes they just accompanied a voice,  sometimes they had their own independent voice. How do you make them sustain? Like a steel drumroll, a tremolo? Or repeat a note a few times rigidly spaced? What's the right volume?

I feel slightly honoured to have been present at an audacious experiment. And slightly dishonoured because I'm not sure that they were really ready for a public concert.

I don't want to hear bells again for a long time.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

JBS

I just want to say I am hugely enjoying your posts. You are actually describing the concerts in a way I understand, instead of the usual musical press-speak.

"Looked like a bunch of auditors"....chortle, chortle....

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Mandryka

#7
Clubmedieval's concert included the complete known works of Gilles Joye (1425-1483),  who's a new name for me.  It was a concert of three halves as it were.

The first part was of motets for two or three voices which was astounding for its contrapuntal complexity, which was as disorienting as anything from Carter or Ferneyhough. I thought it was some of the most interesting music I've ever heard.

The last half was also songs and motets, and also interesting because the music was strangely static. I've never heard anything like it and I found it challenging   in a good way.

The middle half was a three voice cyclical mass presented with organ. I thought it was totally uninspired and drab, I thought I would die of boredom.

The organ had two octaves and hand bellows   first time I've seen that. I'd like to be a bellows man!

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

That's me done with Antwerp for this year. I like the city and I like Amuz. Next year, if they have a good lineup of events,  I'll stay for the whole thing.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

premont

Quote from: Mandryka on August 22, 2019, 02:04:32 PM
Graindelavoix doing mostly Busnoys. An experiment using non vocal sounds- bells and foot stamps.

The stamps worked wonderfully to mark the pulse in one song.

I feel slightly honoured to have been present at an audacious experiment. And slightly dishonoured because I'm not sure that they were really ready for a public concert.

I don't want to hear bells again for a long time.

Also thanks from me for these informative and entertaining reports from the Antwerpen festival.

What did Graindelavoix perform by Busnois? His secular songs are some of the most unjustly neglected woks in the entire music history.
γνῶθι σεαυτόν

Mandryka

#10
Here's the program

Piret (XVe siècle)     Missa Beati Anthonii (Introitus Scitote quoniam)
Antoine Busnoys (vers 1433 – 1492)          Missa L'Ardant Désir (Kyrie, Gloria)
Piret       Missa Beati Anthonii (Alleluia Vox de celo)
Anonyme      Antonius humilis (Prose)
Antoine Busnoys           Missa L'Ardant Désir (Credo)
Antoine Busnoys          Motet Anthoni usque limina
Antoine Busnoys          Missa L'Ardant Désir (Sanctus, Agnus Dei)
Anonyme      Antoni expulsor demonum
Pierre de la Rue (vers 1450 – 1518)     Missa de Sancto Antonio (Agnus Dei)

The theme of the concert was St Anthony's Fire, a disease which causes hallucination and which was common at the time. The music was, apparently, all designed to ward off the malady.

You can imagine bells in Antoni expulsur demonum.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen