The Early Music Club (EMC)

[Harry]

Only went back a few pages, so I apologize if it's been discussed before...
I recently purchased this disc and have instantly fallen in love with it...

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I haven't heard the recording by Cinquecento on Hyperion, is it worth the buy? How is it compared to the Huelgas Ensemble?

Both interpretations are worthwhile to have. I have to say that after comparing, the van Nevel is the best choice. He simply lets the music breath more, and the intensity of singing has more spiritual baggage. His choir has a better balance. There is a sort of breathless immediacy, and subtlety, that gets you by the throat.  Refinement is also part of the success of the Huelgas ensemble. Mystic contemplation to the extreme. Better buy them both.

[Harry]

Due out later this week, The Sixteen's Selva Morale CDs released as a set:



Anyone familiar with these discs and how they compare to other recordings? I'd also be interested to know what The Sixteen's Vespers is like.

The singing culture of the Sixteen is a acquired taste. First sample if you find that to your liking. Harry Christopher has some unusual approach towards the use of females in his choir, and the way he works with dynamics.

[TheGSMoeller]

Both interpretations are worthwhile to have. I have to say that after comparing, the van Nevel is the best choice. He simply lets the music breath more, and the intensity of singing has more spiritual baggage. His choir has a better balance. There is a sort of breathless immediacy, and subtlety, that gets you by the throat.  Refinement is also part of the success of the Huelgas ensemble. Mystic contemplation to the extreme. Better buy them both.

Thanks, Harry, for your response.

[North Star]

I haven't heard the recording by Cinquecento on Hyperion, is it worth the buy? How is it compared to the Huelgas Ensemble?

I haven't heard the Huelgas Ensemble disc, Greg, but that Cinquecento disc is wonderful, and not just for the Requiem, but the other pieces by Josquin & others. I'd like to know what Harry means by the Huelgas having a better balance - the Cinquecento recording has each voice of the polyphony audible, and, really, immediacy and subtlety are not something I find lacking in there either. Obviously the Huelgas will have a 'fuller' sound. But take a listen to the samples.

[TheGSMoeller]

I haven't heard the Huelgas Ensemble disc, Greg, but that Cinquecento disc is wonderful, and not just for the Requiem, but the other pieces by Josquin & others. I'd like to know what Harry means by the Huelgas having a better balance - the Cinquecento recording has each voice of the polyphony audible, and, really, immediacy and subtlety are not something I find lacking in there either. Obviously the Huelgas will have a 'fuller' sound. But take a listen to the samples.

Thanks for the samples, Karlo. I'm fairly sure ill order the Cinquecento recording soon.

[Harry]

I haven't heard the Huelgas Ensemble disc, Greg, but that Cinquecento disc is wonderful, and not just for the Requiem, but the other pieces by Josquin & others. I'd like to know what Harry means by the Huelgas having a better balance - the Cinquecento recording has each voice of the polyphony audible, and, really, immediacy and subtlety are not something I find lacking in there either. Obviously the Huelgas will have a 'fuller' sound. But take a listen to the samples.

First of all I have the Cinquecento recording too, and I confirm you opinion about them. What I meant with a better balance in the Huelgas ensemble, is the balanced between the individual voices, and their tonal blending. I have a slight preference for it. But this said I think one should have both recordings.

[Mr. Minnow]

The singing culture of the Sixteen is a acquired taste. First sample if you find that to your liking. Harry Christopher has some unusual approach towards the use of females in his choir, and the way he works with dynamics.

Thanks for the reply. I have Christophers' much earlier Vespers (the one on Hyperion) and I quite like it, but it uses a very unusual performing edition and may not be directly comparable to other versions. I have a lot of recordings of the Vespers and several Selva Morale sets, so shelling out for Christophers' sets would only be worth it if I thought they were really outstanding. The samples I've heard sound good, but not that good. Maybe worth consideration if I see them going at a reduced price somewhere.

[Que]

A short note on this:

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Despite a raving review by Amazons "Gio" aka Giordano Bruno, this misses for me the ultimate mark of total satisfaction, but only just.
Please read his review and the others linked below. This is another example of a trend away from "slow and reverential" and towards a very "up close and personal" style in OVP (one voice per part) and swift tempi. Which is generally fine by me, and I am impressed by this ensemble's vocal abilities and - in contrast the The Sound of the Fury - perfect balance and blending of voices.

I have however.... a few reservations. Firstly, some movements of the Ockeghem Requiem, which is here performed sec without liturgical context, seem to have transposed upwards. A practice defended/ explained in the booklet. The result is unfortunately at times a hooty countertenor feast....nothing against counter tenors in general but they shouldn't dominate.... This performance certainly doesn't make me forget the account by Ensemble Organum  (with added liturgical context on Harmonia Mundi). Last but not least, emotionally the performances are not very giving, touching, if you will. They are pretty stern and abstract, dour.. I've read in another comment, which seems to reflect my feelings best. This severity also applies to the performance of De la Rue's requiem, though for me that is much more enjoyable. Nevertheless I will seek out the recording by the Ensemble Janequin (Harmonia Mundi).

Other recent recordings by this ensemble have been praised more unanimously (also here),  so I'm not giving up in them yet.. ..

Review by Johan van Veen (combined with a critical review of a recording byThe Sound of the Fury) HERE
Fanfare review at ArkivMusic

Q

[Mr. Minnow]

Has anyone else got this?




I got it recently and noticed a low buzzing in the opening track on the first disc. I can't hear it in online samples so I briefly wondered if I had a faulty disc but I think the buzzing is too regular to be a fault - it's not present in the opening chant, occurs in the fanfare, disappears in the quieter sections and reappears when the fanfare recurs, so I assume it's a particular instrument which only plays during the fanfare sections. Anyone know what it is?

[Que]

Man I love Lassus 



His music is very important to me (alongside Gesualdo, Machaut, Perotin and Ockeghem) 

Oh yes, another Lassus fan! 

A strong favourite of mine as well, one of the most eminent Early Music composers.

Speaking of which, I see Josquin Desprez is still missing on you shortlist...some more to explore!

Coincidentally, I'm planning to look into available recordings of the Prophetiae Sibyllarum - how is the Junghänel? 

Q

[North Star]

Oh yes, another Lassus fan! 

A strong favourite of mine as well, one of the most eminent Early Music composers.

Speaking of which, I see Josquin Desprez is still missing on you shortlist...some more to explore!

Coincidentally, I'm planning to look into available recordings of the Prophetiae Sybillarum - how is the Junghänel? 

Q

Hm, this reminds me, I must remember to put this recording on my shopping list before it goes OOP.

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[Mandryka]

On amazon.com there's a discussion around a review of Walter Testolin's Missa Gaudeamus (Josquin) where someone says

Young men with exceptional musical ability, whose voices broke at about 16 - 18, would work very hard to continue singing in a treble register, either 'naturally' or outright falsetto, since they were thus in demand. There was a 'class' of altos, men or course, called "Capuaners", who worked on singing across the break between chest tenor and falsetto alto, with as little obvious 'shift' as possible.

Is this correct?


The same person also asserts

Choristers got PAID especially to sing the ordinaries of masses when donations were made

Has anyone seen any records of this? I wonder if he's thinking of votive masses which were sponsored, Where did this happen? Were the names (and hence the genders) of the singers who received some money recorded?

[North Star]

We've moved onto baroque now and still didn't discover any early composers 

I guess being a compulsive listener, means that I'm bound to discover anything eventually 

Did you look into this yet? (and their Monteverdi)

This set is worthy of a purchase, alien:

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[millionrainbows]

What is it about early music that makes it appeal to some, and not to others? Is it because it is not as harmonically developed?

I listened to some pieces from my John Dowland box the other day, and while he is pleasant, the music seems to cycle in little circles harmonically, it doesn't have much forward momentum. I like earlier stuff like Hidegard better, precisely because it is less developed in terms of forward movement. It sounds like Dowland is stuck in the middle somewhere. Maybe that's the 'folk' element?

[Mandryka]

I saw someone's work today on vibrato used by different singers, Emma Kirkby, Jussi Bjorling, Jantina Noorman, Alfred Deller, Russel Oberlin. The work was scientific - you know, it looked at the wave forms of the notes they produced.

Anyway, one key idea is the "romantic" singers in fact used vibrato all through a note, and early music singers used vibrato only at the end - after they'd established the tone very clearly for the listener by singing it white, they tended to add expression at the end by doing a bit of vibrato.

The whole area is interesting, it was a major preoccupation of Micheal Morrow. We listened to some things that Musica Reservata  did with madrigals, very strange things. I have to say that the more I get to know about performing early music the stranger it is, and the whole interrelationship between orientalism, medievalism, folk music and . . . machaut, troubadours, Dufay  . . .  gets more obscure the more I know! I can certainly see how someone may want to devote their whole life to it.

Vibrato, I was told, is linked to volume. Part of what Murrow was investigating was non 19th century ways of helping a singer be loud. Of course he was interested in what they do in Bulgaria, but one person, a Bulgarian, said that much of  the music that he took for authentic was in fact a Soviet creation, and real Bulgarian folk music sounds nothing like it. I thought that was quite funny.

Bulgaria chosen randomly as far as I can see - just as Pérès chose Corsica randomly and Binkley chose North Africa randomly. Basically anywhere out of the influence of the romantic west would do for an "alternative" singing style for early music.

Anyway it's made me interested in the area again and I've just ordered Andrew Parrott's book on composers' intentions, which seems to have been well received by scholars.

[Mandryka]

What is it about early music that makes it appeal to some, and not to others? Is it because it is not as harmonically developed?

I listened to some pieces from my John Dowland box the other day, and while he is pleasant, the music seems to cycle in little circles harmonically, it doesn't have much forward momentum. I like earlier stuff like Hidegard better, precisely because it is less developed in terms of forward movement. It sounds like Dowland is stuck in the middle somewhere. Maybe that's the 'folk' element?

Re Dowland, the thing that makes me interested is the subtlety of the idea of melancholy, and the way he tried to express all those different types of melancholies in music - you need to read his preface to the Lachromae to see what I mean, it used to be easy to find online.

[Que]

(Lots of extended listening to) Renaissance music is doing strange things to me 

Like?   

[Mr. Minnow]

We've moved onto baroque now and still didn't discover any early composers 

I guess being a compulsive listener, means that I'm bound to discover anything eventually 

Are you familiar with the Ars Subtilior? If not, you might find it well worth investigating. It's known for its rhythmic complexity and quirkiness, so as you're a fellow Cardiacs nut it might well appeal. When I was introducing a Cardiacs fan to early music a while back he found the Ars Subtilior pieces particularly to his liking, as I thought he might. 

[North Star]

Sort of, sort of not. I know some of Baude Cordier's music but I'm still having a major exploration at the moment. Hit me up with any suggestions? 

This.
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https://www.youtube.com/v/X2IoIjDxqQI

Oh, and you should hear this disc of Josquin & his followers' music.

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[Drasko]

Hit me up with any suggestions?