The Early Music Club (EMC)

Started by zamyrabyrd, October 06, 2007, 10:31:49 PM

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chasmaniac

Correction noted. I'm really looking forward to hearing this set. Should arrive today, and if I can I'll relay its flavours myself as a supplement to your notes.
If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."  --Wittgenstein, PI §217

haydnguy

I finished my CD 11 this morning:


Que

Quote from: chasmaniac on June 02, 2011, 02:34:53 AM
Correction noted. I'm really looking forward to hearing this set. Should arrive today, and if I can I'll relay its flavours myself as a supplement to your notes.

Ah, excellent! :) You won't be dissapointed, I think. :)

Q

haydnguy

Que, I just want to say how much I'm enjoying the information your posting. That Disk 3 info. was really something!! 8)

Today I will be on Disk 12:


chasmaniac

#284
Quote from: ~ Que ~ on May 28, 2011, 11:49:25 PM
 

Forward, Phoebus! In performance, late medieval music all too often melts into a shapeless puddle of New Age mood. Van Nevel isn't having that. By pushing tempos and stressing accents he gives back to this complex and layered music the contours it needs to distinguish itself from mere historical colouring. The last track, Se Galaas, is a tour de force of excited, rushing polyphony. A fantastic record.
If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."  --Wittgenstein, PI §217

Que

#285
 


Utopia Triumphans, The Great Polyphony of the Renaissance
, Huelgas Ensemble, Paul van Nevel.

Thomas Tallis' famous Spem in Alium and other large scale multipart polyphonic works by Constanzo Porta, Josquin Desprez, Johannes Ockeghem, Pierre de Manchicourt, Giovanni Gabrieli and Alessandro Striggio.

This 4th disc of the set showcasing the heights of complex Renaissance polyphony has for a long time an hypnotic attraction for me - I listened to it over and over again for several mornings in a row. Music composed to impress and it so does! :) Amazing, amazing stuff, a jewel in the crown of this set.

Having a look at the reviews at Amazon US, I found that most of the feedback focused on the performance of Talis' Spem in Alium. Understandable since this is the piece that is best known, but it does neither justice to the rest of the music or the disc as a whole. As it happens in the Huelgas continental style the Tallis piece turns out more objective, "cooler" and darker sounding than in the ethereal style British performances. I also think the added sweetness and less earthy style of, for instance, La Chaplle du Roi under Alistair Dixon ultimately suits the piece better. But the story on this disc doesn't end there! The pieces by Porta, Josquin Desprez, Ockeghem, Manchicourt, Gabrieli and Striggio are as worthy as the Tallis piece and get the great performance they deserve. I leave you in the hands of an expert - Bruno Giordano, who knows his stuff - to tell the rest:

All praise and tribute to Paul van Nevel and the Huelgas Ensemble for this magnificent effort at recording the unrecordable! The result is inevitably a qualified triumph, a CD that is thrilling to hear and yet that doesn't consistently capture the 'greatness' of the music it contains. Six of the seven works recorded here were composed for massive forces of singers, by 16th C standards, but decidedly NOT for a large choir. The pieces by Thomas Tallis and Alessandro Striggio were composed in 40 separate polyphonic lines, to be sung by 40 separate voices, as they are performed on this occasion. All six pieces are effectively 'poly-choral' in various configurations:

Tallis/Spem in alium: eight 5-part choirs
Costanzo Porta/Sanctus & Agnus Dei: three 4-part choirs plus a detached cantus firmus
Josquin Deprez/Qui habitat: four six-part groups, not intended as separated choirs
Johannes Ockeghem/Deo gratias: four nine-part groups, not intended as separated choirs
Giovanni Gabrieli/Exaudi me domini: four 4-part choirs, distinctly separated
Striggio: ten 4-part choirs

Though one might assume that having so many more voices -- remember that the overwhelming majority of polyphonic motets and masses were composed to be sung in for-to-six lines with one or two voices per line -- would massively increase the "possibilities' of composition. Such is not the case. Given the overweening centrality of modal consonance in the 'harmonic' language of the Renaissance, the necessity of putting all those voices somewhere, of giving them a pitch to sing, seriously restricted the composers' horizontal freedom of melody-shaping and of rhythmic expression. In other words, when most chords are 'triadic', more and more voices will have to be landing on the same pitches, spread vertically. The effect can almost be predicted: monotonous grandeur! That is, to my ears, even in live performance, the effect of the famous Tallis 'Spem in alium'.

If much is lost in many-part polyphony, is anything gained? Yes, indeed, and composers of the later 16th Century -- Gabriel in particular -- became adept at exploiting the gain: space! dimension! direction! The Gabrieli "Exaudi me Domine" is easily the most successful composition qua music on this CD; it makes acoustic sense. But Gabrieli and others of his generation wrote for acoustic situations radically unlike the modern concert hall; in a symphony hall, all ears are funneled toward a focus point at the conductor's desk. In a cathedral, the normal venue for hearing polychoral polyphony, the choirs would have been stationed at the four corners of the listener's consciousness. Directionality would have been an essential element of the music. Given the laws of sound propagation, however, 'volume' and 'resonance' would also have depended on the listener's particular acoustic vantage point. And since sound travels at a sluggish speed through air, there would have been split-second-but-audible discrepancies in the perceived attacks of pitches. The greatest and most insightful composers of the era would not have ignored such matters; instead they would have, and did, make the acoustic anomalies integral parts of the music. Perhaps it's clear now why I regard this repertoire as 'unrecordable' -- in practical terms, that is, for reproduction through the two-to-five speakers, however fine, in your home theater qua living room, however grandiose.

The two motets by Ockeghem and Deprez, generations younger than Gabrieli, are nonetheless quite spectacular. Spine-tingling, hypnotic, almost psychedelic in effect, like LSD in the abandoned abbey by moonlight. Both composers chose to make the most of the monotone, the insistent tonic drone, the bell-like tolling of the canon. Ockeghem wasn't fond of canonic effects, by the way, and it seems to me very unlikely that this piece is really his work, but it's quite a fine piece, whoever wrote it.
[...] [Bruno Giordano on Amazon.com] complete review.

What a great and informative review! :o :)

The review in the Gramophone is less enthusiatical (despite the understated "a very enjoyable disc"), calling amongst other things in to question the Ockeghem and Josuin Desprez attributions.

Q

Que

And lo and behold! :o

A work on a yet larger scale, and long reputed to be lost, is Striggio's mass composed in 40 parts, and which included a 60-voice setting of the final Agnus Dei. The work was recently unearthed by Berkeley musicologist Davitt Moroney and identified as a parody mass, Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno, and received its first modern performance at the Royal Albert Hall during the London Proms on 17 July 2007 by the BBC Singers and The Tallis Scholars conducted by Moroney. This work was most likely composed in 1565/6, and carried by Striggio on a journey across Europe in late winter and spring 1567, for performances at Mantua, Munich and Paris.[3] The first commercial recording of the Mass, by the British group I Fagiolini, was released in March 2011.

[asin]B004EQ1424[/asin]

Interesting to see one of the "majors" being back at the forefront in the Early Music niche.

Q

Coopmv

Quote from: ~ Que ~ on June 04, 2011, 11:48:39 PM
And lo and behold! :o

A work on a yet larger scale, and long reputed to be lost, is Striggio's mass composed in 40 parts, and which included a 60-voice setting of the final Agnus Dei. The work was recently unearthed by Berkeley musicologist Davitt Moroney and identified as a parody mass, Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno, and received its first modern performance at the Royal Albert Hall during the London Proms on 17 July 2007 by the BBC Singers and The Tallis Scholars conducted by Moroney. This work was most likely composed in 1565/6, and carried by Striggio on a journey across Europe in late winter and spring 1567, for performances at Mantua, Munich and Paris.[3] The first commercial recording of the Mass, by the British group I Fagiolini, was released in March 2011.

[asin]B004EQ1424[/asin]

Interesting to see one of the "majors" being back at the forefront in the Early Music niche.

Q

Q,  Thanks for the posting and this CD is now on my shopping list ...   :)

kishnevi

Quote from: Coopmv on June 05, 2011, 05:17:15 AM
Q,  Thanks for the posting and this CD is now on my shopping list ...   :)

I did you one better.  I ordered it last night as part of an order from Arkivmusic (they have it on sale). 

Que

Quote from: Coopmv on June 05, 2011, 05:17:15 AM
Q,  Thanks for the posting and this CD is now on my shopping list ...   :)

Quote from: kishnevi on June 05, 2011, 07:36:32 AM
I did you one better.  I ordered it last night as part of an order from Arkivmusic (they have it on sale). 

Guys, please let uys know how it is. :)

Q

chasmaniac

Still working my way through the Huelgas box, but this arrived yesterday and I really liked it. Review from classicalnet.



Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594), Lassus, was the most widely-respected composer of his age. His output ranges over a wide spectrum of styles and genres – from the demotic and downright "lowly" chansons and Lieder through both secular and sacred madrigals and court music, to highly refined masses and liturgical compositions. All these forms of Lasso's music share the quality of an almost naîve joie de vivre; yet Lassus never descended to the vulgar, or ran the risk of pomposity or undue piety. Bonjour mon Cœur is a collection of what the note which accompanies the CD calls "Entertainment music of substance" by Lassus and nearly a dozen of his contemporaries... some well known, like Adrian Willaert (1490-1562); others more obscure and unrepresented elsewhere in the current catalog, like Jean de Castro (c.1540-c.1600).

Not that the teeth are in any way drawn from this music – at least not in these spirited and at the same time authoritative interpretations of Capilla Flamenca. There is a nice mix: there are gaiety, movement and elegance. And grace: the way the ensemble conveys all the emotions of the music stops well short of punchiness. Equally, they perform each work with sensitivity and style, never in any staid way.

Many of the pieces here presented are variations, "imitations", "emulations", "parodies" or "contrafacts" of works originally conceived (or indeed perhaps themselves originally borrowed) by Lassus and his contemporaries. The music remained, but a – usually sacred – text replaced a – usually secular – one. It's still hard for a post-Romantic mind to appreciate just how acceptable, how lauded even, this practice was. The CD is in fact centered around the particularly refined chanson by Ronsard, Bonjour mon Cœur. It should also be enjoyed for the lyrical beauty of the songs, which Capilla Flamenca perform with as much gravity and gentility as wit. Indeed, this is an excellent assembly of pieces illustrating the ways in which Renaissance songs dealt with love.

The way in which Capilla Flamenca expose, rather than completely sink themselves into, the songs on the CD is never either didactic or doctrinaire. Their approach comes across as well thought-out: their decision to divide the selection into four groupings corresponding to times of day (in keeping with the spirit of Bonjour mon Cœur) should better provide the listener with a framework for reacting to love's many attendant emotions... pain, exhilaration, hope, despair etc. than would a random sequence. Love awakes in the morning, becomes "exuberant" in the afternoon, eternal in the evening (all six pieces in this section are Lassus') and sleeps at night. On the whole, there are more slower and implicitly reflective works here than there are upbeat ones.

So, it's clear that great care has gone into conceiving, performing and producing this exemplary CD. Capilla Flamenca and Dirk Snellings, its director who also sings bass, are to be congratulated. The result is both entertaining and substantial. The variety of music is stimulating, and is enhanced when you know something of this contextualization. The standard of interpretation itself is very high. Unless every composer here is familiar to you, it's likely that you'll find new favorites. And, although just half the works are by Lassus himself, Bonjour mon Cœur is a good introduction to his work and the genres at which he was so expert and which he could turn to such good account.

The acoustic is close and intimate – surely the right way to present this repertoire... the plucked, wind and stringed instruments have presence and make an appropriate contribution. The "Digipak" has notes in Flemish, French, German and English – and has the texts in their original language and in translations where necessary (the songs are variously in Flemish, French, German). There is a detailed track listing, and an image of a very stern Lassus which somehow conveys his stature, as well as a photograph of the nine-person Capilla Flamenca. This is a more than merely pleasant recital. It's informative, representative of the genres whose music it contains, very persuasively performed and makes an excellent introduction to the accompanied vocal music in the sixteenth century of which Lassus was such an accomplished, imaginative and impeccably polished exponent. Recommended.

Copyright © 2010, Mark Sealey.
If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."  --Wittgenstein, PI §217

haydnguy

Quote from: kishnevi on June 05, 2011, 07:36:32 AM
I did you one better.  I ordered it last night as part of an order from Arkivmusic (they have it on sale).

How was the "Mass In 40 Parts" CD? I have it on my Want List.

EDIT: Thread Duty: I'm still listening to CD 13 and am just amazed by this music.  8)

kishnevi

Quote from: haydnguy on June 09, 2011, 11:01:03 AM
How was the "Mass In 40 Parts" CD? I have it on my Want List.

EDIT: Thread Duty: I'm still listening to CD 13 and am just amazed by this music.  8)

It arrived today, and I just finished listening to it before going online.
Overall, it's a good performance,  but  I would like to hear a purely vocal performance to get a better grip on the mass.   The performances here are a mix of voice and instruments, which allows you to follow the musical lines better than you might in a purely vocal version, but the effect of course is different from a pure a capella performance.  The overall effect to my ears is to make it sort of Gabrieli fifty years beforehand.  The madrigals are good, and  indicate that a full CD devoted to Striggio's secular music would be a worthwhile project--a good deal of it was apparently published in his lifetime, so the prospective Striggio singer would be tracing his way through 16th century publications and not manuscripts scattered who knows where (unlike the manuscript for the mass, which was apparently stuck in a Paris library for 350 years before Davitt Moroney noticed what it was).  The final track is Tallis' Spem in alium, and the mix of instruments again makes it an interesting performance--a good alternative to the usual suspects but not probably a first choice.

Definitely bears rehearing, and I don't think you should hesitate over pulling the trigger for it.

There's a DVD with surround sound files of everything except the madrigals and a 13 minute documentary on the making of the recording, but I'll wait on that. 


Bogey

I wanted to put all of my "early music" cds together and not have them spread out by composers, especially in light that many have various composers.  My wife got me these a few years back to help me locate composers more easily:



However, I do not want my "early music" cds streamed in with my "e" composers, so I looked to see what letters I had not used and decided to use my letter "Q" one in a tip of my fedora to out very own  ~ Que ~.  :)

There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

Coopmv

Quote from: kishnevi on June 05, 2011, 07:36:32 AM
I did you one better.  I ordered it last night as part of an order from Arkivmusic (they have it on sale).

I don't see any need to rush out to get the CD, not that it will be OOP soon ...

haydnguy

Another fine disk by Paul Van Nevel and Huelgas-Ensemble


Que

#296
I see you started exploring outside of the box, David! :)  How is that one? :)


 

Next to the 5th disc that gave the set its name: A Secret Labyrinth, with works by Franco-Flemish composer Alexander Agricola (Ackerman) (1446-1506). Agricola was one of the leading composers of the Josquin generation, his career led him to most of the countries of Western Europe. He worked at the French royal court and Italy. A interesting blurb describing his music:

Agricola's music was first transmitted in quantity in the 1490s. His most characteristic works are his songs and secular instrumental pieces, with over 80 surviving. They are overwhelmingly in three parts, and frequently quote songs by other composers, often in oblique fashion. Agricola's series of instrumental variations on De tous biens plaine is a particularly conspicuous example of his flair for variety and ornamental figuration. Most of Agricola's motets, of which he wrote over two dozen, are in a compact and straightforward style. The succinct three-voice Si dedero was the most-copied work of its generation, as well as a popular model for other settings. Agricola's stature was consummated with Petrucci's publication of a dedicated volume of his masses in 1504, and it is in his eight mass cycles that Agricola's unusual sense for counterpoint shows most clearly. His Missa In minen sin is one of the largest cycles of the era, a virtual encyclopedia of motivic variation. Agricola did not show the concern for text championed by Josquin, nor the feel for open textures pioneered by Obrecht. His counterpoint is extremely dense, with a fantastical feeling developing upon the "irrationality" of Ockeghem's designs. Agricola's larger settings are consequently some of the most intricate and inventive of the era, combining an abundance of contrapuntal ideas with a seemingly intentional arbitrariness into a web of shifting musical connections.

This disc is my first acquaintance with this composer. I highlighted the last sentences above, since that was exactly what struck me about Agricola's music: the ingenuity and elaborateness. One of the most interesting discs in the set. Agricola's music is quite distinctive IMO. As ever I would recommend Bruno Giordano's review on Amazon US. I want to hear more! :)

Much on Agricola points to his masses end the Missa in myne zyn is mentioned a lot. As it happens a new recording has recently been issued, mentioned by several members, like Drasko and new erato. Anyone who can give feedback on that recording yet? :) :)



Q

The new erato

Quote from: ~ Que ~ on June 11, 2011, 12:36:05 AM
As it happens a new recording has recently been issued, mentioned by serveral members, like Drasko and new erato. Anyone who can give feedback on that recording yet? :) :)



Q
I don't know if you want comments from others than me, but once again, this is quality on all counts.

Que

Quote from: The new erato on June 11, 2011, 12:45:28 AM
I don't know if you want comments from others than me, but once again, this is quality on all counts.

Thanks! :) It's on the wishlist then.

Q

Drasko

It's on top of my wishlist but haven't bought it yet. If/when I eventually do, will post comments.