early music

Choral Music, Concert review, early music, File Under?, New York

Stile Antico Sings Palestrina at St. Mary’s

Photo: Eduardus Lee.

Stile Antico Sings Palestrina at St. Mary’s

March 29, 2025

Church of St. Mary the Virgin

 

NEW YORK – Celebrating their twentieth year, the vocal ensemble Stile Antico brought a program dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s birth to Miller Theatre’s Early Music Series. The concert was held at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in midtown, a space that Miller has employed to host a number of Renaissance music performances.

 

Stile Antico appeared with only eleven singers, instead of their usual complement of a dozen. Baritone Gareth Thomas was ill and couldn’t perform. Between numbers, several of the singers hid surreptitious coughs, leading one to think that a bug had plagued the group en route. The quality of the performance didn’t suffer: they still sang sublimely. 

 

The centerpiece of Stile Antico’s latest recording, The Golden Era: Palestrina (Decca, 2025), is perhaps his most famous piece, Missa Papae Marcelli. A great deal of lore has grown up around it, with a story that Palestrina wrote it in part to convince the more conservative members of the Council of Trent that they needn’t ban polyphony and revert exclusively to plainchant in services. Composers could write in multiple parts and still clearly convey the text. While it is unlikely that the Pope Marcellus Mass served as a test piece, Palestrina took pains to write polyphony that never obscured the words. Many composers, some even generations later, imitated what had come to be called the stile antico style of declamation and use of dissonance. 

 

Stile Antico’s performance of Missa Papae Marcelli on the recording is impressive, a standout that is among the best in a crowded field. Their diction is crystal clear, and the tone and blend of the ensemble is particularly beautiful. At St. Mary’s, the mass’s Credo was featured, and it was an expansive display that was well-paced to express the drama inherent in various passages of the piece. 

 

A number of motets by the composer were also included on the program. Tu es Petrus and Exsultate Deo displayed fleet runs and ricocheting exchanges. Sicut servus was performed with fetching delicacy, and Nigra sum sed formosa was imbued with stately elegance. 

Photo: Eduardus Lee.

Composers besides Palestrina who also served in Rome were on the program as well. Josquin’s Salve regina, with a stark bass motive and a texture frequently divided into duets, represented one of the most prominent elder statesmen of the early Renaissance. Jacques Arcadelt’s Pater noster is an example of the florid writing and frequent use of extra-liturgical texts and tunes that contributed to the aforementioned controversy at the Council of Trent. It is hard to lay blame at Arcadelt’s doorstep when hearing his music, which is pleasing in its bustling rhythms and multihued chords. Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Trahe me post te and Orlando de Lassus’s Musica dei donum represented works by esteemed contemporaries. The former has an austere yet attractive manner and the latter, a six-voice motet, is more intricate in presentation. Christus resurgens was by Gregorio Allegri, a composer of the next generation, who continued in Palestrina’s footsteps, composing music in stile antico style. The piece’s use of antiphony is particularly striking. Another later composer, Felice Anerio, who succeeded Palestrina in the Papal Choir, combined passages of relatively homophonic declamation with expressive chromaticism in his Christus factus est.

 

The program also included a new work, A Gift of Heaven by the English composer Cheryl Frances Hoad, who used the preface to a publication by Palestrina, in which he flattered the dedicatee, as the text for her piece. Sumptuous polychords undergirded a solo tenor imparting what Frances Hoad describes as “buttering up a patron.” 

 

Sadly, Stile Antico at eleven could not finish the program with the impressive 12-voice motet Laudate Dominum a 12. They substituted another Palestrina work, Surge Propera Amica Mea, with corruscating runs and an impressive final cadential section, creating an exuberant finale. The group returned to offer something completely different for an encore, “The Silver Swan,” a madrigal by the English composer Orlando Gibbons. It provided a delicately lyrical close to an evening of exquisitely well-performed music. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Choral Music, Concert review, early music, File Under?

Two Early Music Groups Visit New York (Concert Review)

PHOTO CREDIT – Richard Termine

Two Early Music Ensembles Visit New York

Iestyn Davies, countertenor, Fretwork, viols, and Silas Wollston, organ and virginal, Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, December 3rd, 2024

The Tallis Scholars, presented by Miller Theatre’s Early Music Series at Church of St. Mary the Virgin, December 5th, 2024

NEW YORK – This past week’s concert schedule featured two early music ensembles, one specializing in early baroque music, and the other known for renaissance repertoire but presenting a more wide-ranging program. 

The countertenor Iestyn Davies is a highly regarded interpreter of Handel’s operas. He also appeared in Claire van Kempen’s play Farinelli and the King, which bowed at London’s Globe Theatre and on Broadway. At Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, he joined the viol quintet Fretwork – Emilia Benjamin, Jonathan Rees, Joanna Levine, Sam Stadlen, and Richard Boothby – and Silas Wollston, who played organ and virginals, for a program of seventeenth century cantatas. Much of the program was from the CD Lamento (Signum Classics, 2021), and was organized as a geographical tour of repertoire. 

Franz Tunder (1614-1667) was from Northern Germany, and a talented, underappreciated composer. His Salve mi Jesu and An Wasserflüssen Babylon began the concert. The sense of connection among the musicians was immediately apparent. Davies has a remarkably even and sleek-toned voice. Throughout his entire range in an extensive program of challenging repertoire, the countertenor never showed a hint of difficulty. 

The viols, arranged from small to large in size, are fascinating instruments to watch being played, and Fretwork’s long acquaintance – they have performed together for four decades – was immediately apparent. They elicited tone colors that were alternatingly sweet, boisterous, and tinged with melancholy. After the Tunder, they performed a Canzon á 5 by Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654), which alternated between contrapuntal passages and vibrant tutti. A still more elaborate Canzona by the composer was included in the second half. Also on the first half was a suite of dances by Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630), who was cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where J.S. Bach later worked. These elegant works embodied the various demeanors listed above with rhythmic suavity. An additional suite by Shein, with a more doleful cast, was performed on the second half. 

Another northerner, Christian Geist (ca. 1650-1711) was represented by Es war aber an der Stätte, which featured tasteful organ playing by Wollston on an extended recitative. The first half ended with a composer in the prolific Bach line, Johann Christoph (1642-1703), the first Southerner represented, who spent his career in Eisenach. Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte, subtitled Lamento, is a moving work, with harmonic swerves and chromatic embellishments that emphasize its grief-stricken text. Davies embodied the work’s sense of pathos with an emotive but elegantly rendered performance. 

The second half first returned to a Northern German composer, Dietrich Buxtehude (ca. 1637-1707), whose Jubilate Domino, omnis terra changed the mood to one of ebullience. Davies fluidly sang the piece’s melismatic lines, while the syncopated rhythms of the viols and the organ’s ornaments emphasized the text’s joyous mood. The composer was also represented by Klage Lied, which returned to the mood of lamentation. 

A program of seventeenth century music wouldn’t seem complete without Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), and he was represented with Erbarm dich mein, O Herre Gott. In its tragic mood, one could hear the pain and suffering inflicted during the Thirty Years War, which virtually cleared Dresden’s choir loft and left the composer to write many solo cantatas and duos. 

The program concluded with O dulce nomen Jesu, by the Italian composer Giovanni Felice Sances (ca. 1600-1679), who worked in Vienna at the Imperial Palace.  The piece was quite akin to early opera, with the mellifluous repeated trills used by Monteverdi, triple dance rhythms, and dashes of modal writing. Davies’ operatic background made him right at home. 

There were two encores, the first a surprise, Dave Brubeck’s “Weep No More” (arranged by Jonathan Rhys), which was performed with a bluesy,noirish feel. Fretwork proved that viols can play West Coast Jazz, and Davies adopted a cornet-like tone. The second, Wer sich dem Himmel immergëben by Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714) left the audience basking in the ambience of the German baroque.

Tallis Scholars
Photo: Hugo Glendinning

On December 5th at Church of St. Mary the Virgin in midtown, Miller Theatre’s Early Music Series presented The Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips. A nearly annual occurrence, the group often performs Renaissance music with a Marian subject.Last year the visit of angels to the shepherds provided different repertoire that included stirring music by Clemens non Papa. This year, the group focused on chant and chant-inspired pieces from the Christmas season that ranged in date from the 11th to the 21st centuries. 

The theme for the concert was In dulci jubilo, and it began with two verses from the eponymous work by Hieronymous Praetorious (1560-1629). The plainchant In principio omnes by the cloistered nun and polymath Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) followed, with sopranos from the choir performing the chant and the rest holding a drone in octaves. Shifting to the later Renaissance, Salve Regina by Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina (c. 1525-1594) alternated between canonic and tutti passages. It was followed by another chant by Hildegard, O virtus sapientiae, performed by the group’s women. Hildegard’s chants can be rangy, and the solid tone from top to bottom was impressively blended. Two more were featured later on the program, O ignis spiritus, in a poised solo by alto Elisabeh Paul, and a group performance of O ecclesia oculi tui. 

Peter Phillips has written about the difficulties posed by the music of Orlando de Lassus (c. 1532-1594). Its ranges benefit from the incorporation of instruments on some of the parts, but the composer’s Nunc dimittis ‘Il Magnanimo Pietro’ sounded incredibly assured. Its performance was one of the best of the polyphonic music on the program.

The works of a living composer were also included. The Estonian Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) has been championed by the Tallis Scholars, who have recorded a disc of his music. Pärt writes in a bespoke style he calls tintinnabuli, where the titular bell sounds are created by two voices, one singing a linear, chant-like part, and the other arpeggiating triads. The result is lustrous with tangy dissonances. Magnificat is one of his best known pieces, and the Tallis Scholars performed it with superb tuning and imposing fervor. Da Pacem Domine was written in 2004, and dedicated to victims of the Madrid train bombings. Chords cascade between voices, including a downward lamento motive. 

The program’s subordinate theme was Salve Regina, one of four antiphons dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In addition to the Palestrina motet, the group sang the antiphon and two other motets incorporating the chant. Salve Regina by Hernando Marco (c. 1532-1611) is among the first music written in Guatemala, and formidable in its demands. Tomás Luís de Victoria’s Salve Regina is a double choir piece in which the chant’s incipit begins the piece and the chant is threaded throughout the polyphony, ricocheting between the singing groups. 

The program finished with a nineteenth century version of In dulci jubilo by Robert Lucas Pearsall (1795-1856), a colorful anthem featuring a tune that has remained part of the hymnody of various denominations. The encore returned to Praetorious for his setting of Joseph lieber, Joseph mein, concluding in a gently lyrical fashion. The Tallis Scholars at St. Mary’s always brings a welcome start to the season with a bevy of glorious singing.

-Christian Carey 



by Christian Carey
CD Review, early music, File Under?, Piano

Francesco Tristano – Bach: The 6 Partitas (CD review)

Bach: The 6 Partitas

Francesco Tristano, piano

Naïve 2XCD

 

In his 2024 recording for Naïve, pianist Francesco Tristano interprets some of Johann Sebastian Bach’s most challenging pieces, the six Partitas for clavier. Tristano’s 2022 On Early Music was an admirable outing, with pieces by Giralomo Frescobaldi, Peter Philips, John Bull, and Orlando Gibbons, serving as a taster course for Italian and English approaches to harpsichord playing in the early seventeenth century. 

 

Tristano’s keyboard isn’t the harpsichord, but a beautiful sounding grand piano in a recording studio in Kakegawa, Japan. Abetted by sound engineer Christoph Frommen, Tristano reveled in using all of the studio’s devices at his disposal to make what his liner notes essays calls, “BachtotheFuture.” This never sounds like mere trickery, instead it imparts organic sounding, pleasing results. 

 

Tristano is eminently capable of taking fast tempos, such as his fleet renditions of the Allemande from the B-flat major Partita and the Gigue from the G major work, where the counterpoint is clearly delineated in a virtuosic environment. However, he prefers not to rush, and the midtempo and slow dance movements are the better for it, with clear dance rhythms and cleanly delivered ornaments. Extended movements, such as the Sinfonia in the C minor Partita and Toccata in the E minor work, are well-shaped and paced. Indeed, each movement seems to have been carefully considered in its conception and receives a level of attention that makes all that work in the studio in Kakegawa seem well worth it, even necessary. 

 

It is hard to pick favorites among Tristano’s performances of the partitas, and perhaps one’s mood may play a role, as they each seem tailored to a different demeanor. If a doleful mood besets the listener, the pianist’s traversal of the C minor Partita is truly masterful, and will likely meet you where you are and provide considerable uplift by its conclusion. Bach: the 6 Partitas is one of my favorite recordings of 2024.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Choral Music, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, early music, File Under?

The Sixteen at St. Mary’s (Concert Review)

The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers

The Deer’s Cry

Miller Theatre Early Music Series at Church of St. Mary the Virgin

Saturday, October 26, 2024

 

NEW YORK – This past Saturday, renowned British vocal ensemble The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers, made their Miller Theatre Early Music Series debut. Presented at Church of St. Mary the Virgin in midtown, the group performed music from their latest recording on Coro, The Deer’s Cry. Consisting of works by English Renaissance composer William Byrd (1540-1623) and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (1935-), this seemingly eclectic pairing worked well together. Christophers may often be economical in his gestures, but he elicits a beautiful sound and detailed approach from The Sixteen. St. Mary’s is a wonderfully resonant space in which to sing, allowing the ensemble to be shown to its best advantage.

 

Byrd was a recusant Catholic, refusing to join the Church of England at a time when his own faith was frequently persecuted. He was fortunate to have the most influential patron one could hope for: Queen Elizabeth. She gave Byrd and his older colleague Thomas Tallis exclusive rights to publish music in England, and for the most part was able to shield Byrd from the authorities. Some of the biblical texts he set, such as Ab Dominum cum tribular, heard on The Sixteen’s program, were repurposed to comment on the tenuous position of Catholicism in England. 

 

The Sixteen presented a number of Byrd’s Latin motets. The composer delighted in learned devices such as canon. The evening’s opener, the eight-voice motet Diliges Dominum, features a “crab canon,” one in which the tune is designed to be performed forwards and backwards. This complex concoction likely delighted the composer, and was notated in customary fashion, with a poem indicating how to realize the canon; a code to crack for the performers. Miserere nostri is a collaboration between Tallis and Byrd, in which four lines were written by Byrd and another three by Tallis. Once again, canonic procedures are utilized, this time dealing with proportional lengths of melodic  lines and intervallic inversion. Ab Dominum cum tribularer uses imitative motives that move throughout its eight parts to create a contrapuntal web. Christe qui lux es et dies takes a different approach, alternating chant and chordal passages, demonstrating Byrd’s capacity to create a simple, yet poignant, motet as well. 

 

The program’s title work, by Pärt, is a setting of a modern English translation of the Irish prayer also known as St. Patrick’s Breastplate. There is a sustained soprano line with harmony in blocks in the men’s voices. Partway through, all the voices join in a rousing tutti, followed by a long decrescendo to conclude. The Sixteen sings with an extraordinary capacity for dynamic control and nuance, which was amply demonstrated here. Pärt’s Nunc Dimittis, the text a part of the evening prayer service, uses his signature tintinnabuli (bells) style, where some singers perform mostly linear chant-like melodies and others arpeggiate triads, creating both moments of consonance and dissonance in turn. Nunc Dimittis overlaps a number of parts, creating what feels like an entire set of cathedral bells pealing. The Woman With the Alabaster Box recounts the story from the Gospel of Luke, where a woman anoints Jesus’s head with expensive ointment. The disciples object to this opulent gesture, but Jesus tells them that it is appropriate.Here, the musical language is sparer, even severe in the dialogue between Jesus and the disciples. Perhaps Pärt agrees with the commentators who suggest that the anointing is, metaphorically, a preparation for Jesus’s death. The three selections by the Estonian composer showed the multiplicity of elements in his music, a vivid palette that too often has been mislabeled “holy minimalism.”

 

The concert program concluded with Byrd’s Tribue domine, an elaborate six-voice setting of a prayer of supplication, in which there is much alternation between different portions of the ensemble and tutti singing. The encore was Vigilate. which The Sixteen recorded for A Watchful Gaze (2023), another album focused on Byrd’s music. Taken at a brisk tempo with a thrilling conclusion, The Sixteen and Christopher’s rendition of Vigilate was the most dramatically intense performance of Byrd I have ever heard. An untoppable conclusion to their first visit to St. Mary’s under the auspices of Miller Theatre. One hopes they return regularly. 

 

Christian Carey

Sequenza21

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, early music, File Under?

Gesualdo Six – Queen of Hearts (CD Review)

Queen of Hearts

Gesualdo Six, Owain Park, director

Alasdair Austin, countertenor (final track only)

Hyperion Records, 2024

 

On Queen of Hearts, the low male vocal ensemble Gesualdo Six explores pieces devoted to queens, both the Virgin Mary (in her guise as Queen of Heaven), and queens from England and Continental Europe during the renaissance era. Some of the selections blur identities, linking the saintly actions of earthly monarchs with those of Mary. 

The Song of Songs, from the Hebrew Bible, has an interesting place in both sacred and secular music of the Renaissance. In liturgical pieces, it is an insertion that venerates the Virgin Mary. In secular motet-chansons, it is often incorporated to make a connection between virtuous secular queens and Mary. As is their usual mode of operations, Gesualdo Six present a well-researched and musically inspired program. The eminent musicologist Guy James prepared editions of the music sung on Queen of Hearts, making it a bespoke collection that reflects the most recent and respected editorial trends. 

 

The motet-chanson, particularly the regretz chansons, are a pivotal part of the program of Queen of Hearts. In the regretz genre, the beloved’s heart is broken because the desired one doesn’t reciprocate their affection or they aren’t available to each other. As James discusses in his excellent liner notes, the first regretz chansons were dedicated to Margaret of Austria, who had them collected in a large songbook, then called a chansonnier. Secret regretz, by Pierre de la Rue, begins in duet textures, eventually fanning out into four-voice polyphony. The poem’s author refuses to be defeated, asking for aid from fellow poets to raise his spirits. This response is against the grain of many regretz texts, suggesting that the genre didn’t cohere at first, exploring various themes before settling on just a few. 

 

Several regretz chansons were dedicated to Anne of Brittany, who throughout her life had a series of relationships end in heartbreak. Jean Mouton’s De tous regretz was likely written while the composer was at Anne’s court. Gesualdo Six plays up the antiphonal passages with a slight accelerando, while liquescent legato lines provide the piece’s moving conclusion.

 

Antoine de Févin is represented by Fors Seulement, with tight upper duet constructions offset by registrally dispersed lower voices. There are multiple settings that honor “Gentle Févin” after his passing. It is speculated that Dulcis amica dei by Johannes Prioris might have been one. The piece’s melody was popular enough to be used by other composers at the French court. Another piece by Prioris, this one likely dedicated to Anne of Brittany upon her passing, Consommo la vita mia, is even more attractive, with each phrase beginning with slowly articulated melodic lines and concluding with achingly slow. chordal descents. Prioris should be better known, and it is typical of Gesualdo Six’s programming that they include such composers alongside those more frequently programmed. Only one composer from Italy appears on Queen of Hearts, but Costanzo Festa’s Quis dabit oculis is a riveting extended motet that also mourns the death of Anne. Its doleful chords and a proto-fugue are given an expressive performance by the ensemble.

 

Anne Boleyn’s songbook contained a number of pieces by Joquin, in addition those by other continental composers. Josquin’s Mille Regretz is perhaps the most popular of the genre. One can readily hear why; it is exquisitely well-constructed, with an initial architecture of leaps eventually filled in to make for a seamless conclusion. Praeter rerum seriem is a Marian motet with canons, beginning from the bass, with text describing the visitation of Mary by the Holy Spirit. The second section begins with an upper duet that then accumulates, top-down this time, into six-part writing. A favorite of mine from the Boleyn songbook is Antoine Brumel’s setting of a devotion to Mary, Sub tuum praesidium. Homophonic duets in the upper voices are juxtaposed with polyphony that begins its rise from the lowest voices. The resulting harmonies are gorgeous. 

 

Two new pieces were commissioned for Queen of Hearts. One is by Gesualdo Six’s director, Owain Park, Prière pour Marie. The text is a prayer that was said to have been uttered by peasants about Mary Tudor when she was glimpsed traveling towards her wedding to Louis XII. “Mary on earth, Mary in the sky.” Park has a fine command of the polychords and chromatic tonal shifts frequently found in 21st century choral music. The piece’s declamation combines stacked verticals, and canons found amid other voices in free counterpoint. Its mood is portentous, as if the peasants have, by analogizing one queen to another, felt as if they have seen a divine vision. Plaisir N’ai plus by Nifea Cruttwell-Reade, is full of harmonic surprises, especially ones that resolve curiously against a pedal tone. In places, it appears that Cruttwell-Reade  is repurposing the chromatic cadences that occurred in the renaissance to function in their own polytonal idiom. 

 

The recording ends with one of the great pieces of the middle Renaissance, the Song of Songs setting Ego flos campi by Clemens non Papa. A seventh singer, the countertenor Alasdair Austin, is added to the performance. Perhaps Clemens’s best known piece, it is a beautiful treasure. Gesualdo Six plus one give a memorably expressive performance of it.

 

Queen of Hearts is both curated and performed with exquisite care. It is one of my favorites thus far of 2024.

 

Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, early music, File Under?

C.P.E. Bach Symphonies on Harmonia Mundi

Carl Philip Emanuel Bach

Symphonies from Berlin to Hamburg

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin

Mayumi Hirasaki and Georg Kallweit, concertmasters

Harmonia Mundi

 

Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) was the middle of Johann Sebastian Bach’s three surviving sons. His music occupies the period between the baroque and classical, often called the galant or rococo style. It truly is a transitional era, with the development of the orchestra, symphony, and a move toward more homophonic textures. Several recordings of his works have recently been issued, and it is nice to see this talented composer having a moment. 

 

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin is a conductor-less ensemble led, as was the custom then as well, by its concertmasters Mayumi Hirasaki and Georg Kallweit. Their latest recording for Harmonia Mundi is a program of seven of C.P.E. Bach’s symphonies, Symphonies from Berlin to Hamburg, written for strings and continuo. Three date to early in his career (from 1738-1768), when he was in Berlin writing for the court, and the rest from the period of 1768 onwards, when he was Kapellmeister in Hamburg. 

 

All of them are cast in three movements – fast-slow-fast – and, as one can gather from the number of them on a single disc, are significantly shorter than those of the classical era. Their first movements are kinds of proto-sonatas, in which thematic development is truncated and themes are presented quickly and succinctly. 

 

That doesn’t mean that C.P.E.’s orchestral works are lacking in invention or surprises. There are also a number of harmonic shifts where a quick transition – in the C major H.649 symphony with just a single bass note – turns the music sideways. One trick that I particularly admire is the foreshadowing in the second movement of material that is reimagined for the last one. 

 

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin recorded the program over a significant time period, with younger players, such as concertmaster Mayumi Hirasaki, joining part way through the process. This has led to a well-considered and exquisitely well-prepared recording. Symphonies from Berlin to Hamburg is not only an excellent introduction to the symphonic approach of the galant style, it is a compelling document suggesting that C.P.E. is a worthy successor to his famous father and precursor to the classicism of Haydn and Mozart. Recommended.

 

Christian Carey

 

 

by Christian Carey
Classical Music, Concerts, early music, New York

The Chevalier: New York Premiere

The Chevalier: The Life & Music of Joseph Bologne brings together two concepts that are hot today: music theater (or, theater with music), and recognition of figures in classical music other than white European males (Bologne is two out of three, if you count his place of birth).

The subject is Joseph Bologne, also known by his title Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a Black bon vivant who was born in 1745 on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. Formally educated in France, his talents for violin playing and composition shone (along with fencing and dancing) and he was also a military colonel and an abolitionist. As a composer, the guy was no hack: he wrote at least one hundred works from string quartets to operas.

What was his life as a Black man in courtly 18th century Europe like? We may never know for sure. Bill Barclay’s play dramatizes episodes of his life, with live performances of his music woven into the story. Barclay, by the way, is also the artistic director of Music Before 1800, the New York early music institution. MB1800 co-presents the performance, along with Concert Theatre Works (of which Barclay is also artistic director, and which supplied the actors for this production), and the Harlem Chamber Players (whose instrumental talents will be in full display on stage, along with solo violinist Brendon Elliott).

United Palace

If you are even the slightest bit piqued by this description, the venue should put you over the top. The United Palace (4140 Broadway in the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan) is a must-see all by itself. The brilliantly gorgeous and excessively ornate decor of this 1920’s one-time movie theater will take your breath away. It’s one of New York City’s largest theaters, with 3400 seats.

The performance is on January 21, 2024, at 4 pm (get there early so you can gawk at the “eclectic Orientalia with Moorish-Rococo influence” of the hall).  Tickets at unitedpalace.org. The performance will be captured on video, and will be available for on-demand streaming in February (tickets via mb1800.org).

 

by Gail Wein
Choral Music, Concert review, early music, File Under?

The Tallis Scholars at St. Mary the Virgin (Concert Review)

Photo: Rodrigo Pérez

 

Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips, director

Church of St. Mary the Virgin

December 9, 2023

 

NEW YORK – It is the fiftieth anniversary of the renaissance ensemble the Tallis Scholars, directed during that entire time by Peter Phillips. Their annual December visit to St. Mary the Virgin Church in midtown often consists of a predominantly Marian program, both to suit that setting and church calendar. This year, there were two large pieces devoted to Mary – settings of Salve Regina by Jacob Obrecht (1457-1505) and Peter Philips (1560-1628; the early baroque composer, not the eponymous conductor of the Tallis Scholars). The bulk of the music was instead devoted to a different theme, “While Shepherds Watched,” with its centerpiece being Missa Pastoris quidnam vidistis by Jacobus Clemens Non Papa (c. 1510-1556; “not the pope” – Pope Clement – was thought to be an affectionate nickname). This parody mass, based on the motet Pastoris quidnam vidistis by Clemens, was recorded in 1987 by the Tallis Scholars. Its reappearance at the concert at St. Mary’s was a welcome return. 

 

The concert began with Clemens’s motet, a dramatic setting depicting the visitation of  angels to a group of shepherds, announcing the birth of the messiah and urging them to go and find him. The composer comes from the post-Josquin generation, the mid-period of the renaissance in which elaborate counterpoint often took precedence over clarity of text, but with considerable expressiveness achieved by musical atmosphere. 

 

The mass incorporates a number of aspects of the motet, its opening figure treated in a number of passages, sometimes the entire tune, and at others, its rising head motto. The Kyrie bustles with activity, free counterpoint encircled by imitation. The Gloria has a canon in the lower voices and an elaborated melody in the high soprano. As it is often performed, the final section, “qui tollis,” speeds up. Here, because of the prevalence of syncopation, the effect was thrilling. The jubilation of the shepherds at the motet’s close is mirrored in the exuberance of the Sanctus’ “Alleluia.” An extra bass part was added to the Agnus Dei, reinforcing the sonority of the close of the mass.

 

Three motets on the “While Shepherds Watched” theme ensued. One of the greatest Christmas motets from the renaissance in Iberia is the six-voice Quem vidistis, pastores by Tomás de Luis Victoria (1548-1611). The sopranos begin in canon, accompanied by a free part in the alto, suggesting, as compared with the text Clemens set, an early appearance of the angels. The three lower parts respond in an analogous configuration. The two trios then break out of mirrored deployments, speeding up in a nimble section that ends with a major cadence. The second part of the motet continues the mirroring effect, with the lower voices starting a new canon first, followed by the upper trio. After a spirited Alleluia section, the choir settled into a final set of phrases taking the text, “go and tell them,” finally arriving at another major cadence.

 

Two settings of Quaeramus cum pastoribus followed. It is a text in which an angel exhorts the shepherds to find the Messiah, followed by a refrain of Noés (noëls). Portuguese composer Pedro de Cristo (1545-1618) created a four-voice setting consisting of tightly spaced canons with the refrain moving to a sprightly triple meter. The Tallis Scholars reveled in its joyousness, but I can also imagine this motet being a good introduction to Renaissance Christmas music for an ambitious American church choir. Italian composer Giovanni de Croce (1557-1609), on the other hand,  sets the text in the Venetian style, with two quartets and much antiphony. The contrasting settings of the same text were a canny programming choice, and the singers thrived in this deployment.

 

Obrecht’s Salve Regina alternates chant and polyphony. It was performed with eloquent solemnity, providing a marked shift of demeanor. The Salve Regina by Philips, on the other hand, is a vibrant affair. Composed nearly a century after the Obrecht, it focuses on antiphonal polyphony rather than chant. Philips was a Catholic exile from England, and his Salve Regina setting has much in common with the Venetian polychoral style. 

 

After sustained applause, the Tallis Scholars performed a brief but pleasing encore, Salva Nos by French composer Jean Mouton (1459-1522). The piece gave the group’s lower voices considerable attention, its final chord richly sepulchral. Fifty years into their tenure, the Tallis Scholars and Phillips remain an energetic and authoritative presence. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

Brabant Ensemble Sings Guerrero (CD Review)

Guerrero: Missa Ecce Sacerdos Magnus, Magnificat, and Motets

Brabant Ensemble, directed by Stephen Rice

Hyperion

 

The Spanish Renaissance composer Francisco Guerrero (1528-1599) does not have the profile or deep discography he deserves. Brabant Ensemble, directed by Stephen Rice, seek to raise the former and enhance the latter with Missa Ecce Sacerdos Magnus, Magnificat, and Motets, a Hyperion CD of pieces by Guerrero that have not previously been recorded. While hearing them is past due, it is welcome all the same.

 

The ensemble has an exquisite blend, doubtless helped in part by being populated by performers who also collaborate together in other ensembles, notably the Ashby sisters (Stile Antico). Rice selects tempos that are measured, never rushed, resulting in clarity of textual utterance. Contrapuntal entrances are seamlessly coordinated.

 

The motets are artfully crafted. Gaude Barbara features diverse smaller groupings of the ensemble, with lines shifting between them, creating a varied texture. It is an effusive opener for the recording. The six-part Simile Est Regnum Caelorum is similarly jubilant, juxtaposing homophonic and polyphonic entrances, with frequent cadential elisions.

 

Quomodo Cantabimus Canticum Domini, on the other hand, uses lines from Psalm 137, one of the most wrenching of those lamenting the Babylonian captivity. Here, the upper voices move through a plangent harmonic sequence, the basses held back until the words “In a strange land.” The staggering of entrances creates a feeling of isolation and confusion, which fits the words perfectly. Ductus est Jesus, a setting of the text of Jesus’s temptations in the wilderness, nearly steps out of the Renaissance frame in its theatricality of utterance, with dramatic depictions of Satan’s suggestions and resolute rejoinders from Christ. O Crux Splendidior is doleful yet dignified, with melancholy harmony supported by flowing lines.

 

Missa Ecce Sacerdos Magnus is a five-voice (the altos divisi throughout) cantus firmus mass. In addition to melodic material from the chant’s incorporation, the chant text is sung at times by some of the parts instead of the text of the Ordinary of the mass. Depicting the “great priest” in a text primarily from Ecclisiastes, the chant is a clear reference to Christ and also to its dedicatee, Pope Gregory VIII.

 

The Kyrie manages some rhythmic shaping to accommodate the entire chant melody. Free material against it includes a soaring soprano line, which then descends in a quarter note sequence imitated in the tenor and bass voices. The Gloria is one of the first sections of a piece on the recording in which homophony and paired question and answer phrases dominate, rendering the text compactly. The Credo, on the other hand, is an expansive rendering that takes its time with the various textual allusions. My favorite movement is the Sanctus – Benedictus, which contains a brilliant, canonic Osanna that is performed gloriously by the Brabant Ensemble. The luminous Agnus Dei returns to the chant text and expands to six voices. Canonic entries and rhythmic variations allow for considerable pliancy, with a vibrant soprano line leading the mass to an extended final cadence.

 

A second set of motets reveals the variety of approaches that Guerrero adopted. Peccantem Me Quotidie is even just as  emotive as Ductus est Jesus, depicting a penitent’s fear of Hell and implorations for mercy. The five-voice Beatus Es Et Bene Tibi Erit is a compact setting with an effusive closing section. Quae Es Iste Tam Formosa is an early work, with paired entrances reminiscent of earlier composers and considerable dissonance in its second part. Even though these techniques would be dispensed with in Guerrero’s later music, the motet is well-constructed and attractive. 

 

Magnificat Secundi Toni is an alternatim setting for four voices, with the sopranos dividing in the last verse to reinforce the sonority. The chant verses are used as material for the polyphonic sections, making the Magnificat an economical setting that, like the most contrapuntal sections of the mass, demonstrates Guerrero’s mastery of technique. 

 

The Brabant Ensemble are extraordinary advocates. Hopefully, the pieces programmed here will gain wider currency.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, early music, File Under?

Fabio Biondi plays Vivaldi Concertos “Per Anna Maria”

Concerto per Violino XI, “Per Anna Maria”

Fabio Biondi, violin; Europa Galante

Naive Records

 

Anna Maria (1696-1782) was one of Antonio Vivaldi’s principal muses. She was a pupil of his at Ospedale delle Pietà, where he taught for forty years. A child prodigy, Anna Maria was a violinist of enormous talent. Vivaldi recognized this and composed at least twenty-four concertos dedicated to her. 

 

Judging by the concertos performed by soloist Fabio Biondi, the composer entrusted Anna Maria with works requiring enormous facility and musicality. The D Major concerto that opens the recording begins with a brief snatch of a simple theme that is a red herring for the vigorous soloing to come. The ensemble plays with rhythmic verve and dynamics that, while terraced, bring an expressive character, powerful in the forte sections and dulcet in the soft. The middle movement is a harmonically twisty theme accompanied by the continuo, which includes a portative organ and lute. The finale is a gigue with quick-paced sequential passages for the soloist. A brief minor interlude is followed by a fleet-footed cadenza, played with nimble virtuosity by Biondi, then a bold conclusion. 

 

The concerto in B-flat is subtitled “il corneto da posta” (the post-horn). The first movement is filled with zesty double-dotted rhythms. The second has a flexible  solo part with an emotive minor middle section. The concerto does indeed make use of post-horn calls, albeit in strings, in its buoyant finale movement.

 

The Concerto in E-flat, RV261, is a particular standout, featuring a bustling Allegro in which the tutti are a muscular foil for Biondi, who plays ricocheting lines with a glimmering tone. The Adagio is a plaintive minor key movement, with the ensemble again emphatic while the solos are played with supple grace. The final movement is taken at a breathtaking tempo and is a showcase for both soloist and ensemble.

 

The concerto in C-major supplies some of the most regal-sounding music I have heard from Vivaldi in an instrumental context: it is as if he has borrowed Handel’s wig. Biondi demonstrates his talent for period-informed bespoke ornaments in the Largo movement. A separate track at the end of the recording demonstrates the score’s original ornaments. Touches like this make “Per Anna Maria ” an estimable contribution to Naive’s Vivaldi collection. It is one of my favorite recordings of 2023.

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey