Renaissance polyphony masterpiece(s)

I found today the Ockeghem Prolationum mass performed by Clemencic Consort in the used CDs bin. It is GREAT! (although probably impossible to find). Marvellously complicated polyphony although it's only for 4 parts. Avoid Hilliard Ensemble in this repertoire.

 

Clemencic's Ockeghem is very impressive. If you can get the Requiem Mass - there is a bass entry (trombone, played forte) that will never leave your mind.

About the Hilliards. My first reaction was that it was too soft. But I eventually grew very fond of their interpretations. Very austere, but deeply spiritual. I understand that you don't like them in this particular repertoire. But they were (still are, but changed rather a lot) so musical.

It is very British - different from the mystical expressiveness of the Tallis Scholars - but by no means phlegmatic. A kind of late autumnal interpretations. Almost calvinistic.

 

Just picked up this Virgin Classics double CD:

Tallis: Latin Church Music
Taverner Consort & Choir / Andrew Parrott
CD Album/s(x2) : 5622302

'Warmly recommendable, a superb collection.' Penguin Guide

CD 1 62:23

Videte miraculum (9:34)
Homo quidam (5:29)
Audivi vocem (3:42)
Candidi facti sunt (4:55)
Dum transisset sabbatum (8:07)
Honor, virtus, et potestas (6:17)
Hodie nobis (3:25)
Loquebantur variis linguis (5:00)
In pace, in idipsum (5:30)
Spem in alium (10:20)

CD 2 67:31

Gaude gloriosa Dei Mater (18:22)
Te lucis ante terminum
(Procul recedant somnia) I (1:52)
Miserere nostri (1:45)
Salvator mundi I (2:39)
Lamentations of Jeremiah I (8:46)
Salvator mundi II (2:33)
O sacrum convivium (3:55)
Suscipe, quaeso Domine (8:37)
O nata lux (1:45)
In jejunio et fletu (4:10)
Lamentations of Jeremiah II (13:03)

Taverner Consort & Choir
Andrew Parrott direction


Very nice! The sort of thing to listen to in a quiet room in subdued lighting. Parrott's choir is very good, with boyish-sounding sopranos.

 

About Hilliards: they are skillful and musical all right but their contratenors sound a bit dominating. Why use contratenors at all when you can have a better male-female balance by introducing sopranos (that is what the Tallis Scholars do although they have been criticized for their non-HIP approach)?
I found also the Hilliard / de La Rue Missa Cum Iocunditate record in the used CDs bin, bought it and now wonder how would it sound with sopranos, without contratenors?

 

Does anyone really care, when they produce such marvellous sounds? Gardiner has pointed out that it is simply impossible to reproduce the sound of those old choirs, because the voices to do it no longer exist (boys' voices broke much later, etc.). In addition, it seems to me to trap the music as a historical relic in another age, rather than wjhat it should be, a universal, eternal statement that can speak to us across hundreds of years.

 

I don't object to contraltos in Renaissance music

But I find the sound of the voice of a counter tenor very different from the voice of a contralto (as a matter of fact I believe they are not really countertenors, but male altos, which is different – the sound is not the same)..

This is perhaps not so important in recorded music, but listening live a good male cathedral alto has a kind of eerie sound that is totally flabbergasting.

I particularly remember listening to many concerts of all male choirs that will last forever in my mind.

As to the fact pointed to by Tones, it is true that one cannot reconstruct the original sound. But that is true not only for singers. Did you know one doesn't really know how they played the violin (one knows they did it differently according to countries- that is about all)?

And more than that, we cannot reproduce the MINDS of these days: when they listened to a mean tone tuned organ they felt it was in tune - something we don't, nowadays.

And it gets even worse: there is an organ stop called 'human voice' (Vox humana, Voix humaine, Voce umana, Voz humana). It was supposed to imitate the human voice. Now in Italy, Spain and Portugal the stop has a velvety quality, quietly undulating - it has indeed a vocal character. In Germany it is a rather rasping sound (a reed). Does that mean that in Germany they sang harshly and in Southern Europe they sang sweetly? Well, perhaps. It is possible, one just does not know. Ought we to sing German 16th Century Motets in that way? Is anyone even going to try? We'd find it horrible.

So my motto is: if it sounds good, use it. If it really makes a difference, try it. Male cathedral altos do make a difference. I actually like it very much.

But I also like the Tallis Scholars, to mention only a case of mixed choir.

The truth is: these kind of petty details don't really matter as long as the performance is musical.

 

About Tallis Scholars: I have listened to their Duarte Lobo, Obrecht and Clemens non Papa recordings. Their Lobo is excellent and has great therapeutic value for me. Their Clemens disc is a different issue. It is sung too fast and as if the mass were in major tonality but it isn't. The Clemens mass would have benefited from a melancholic and slow performance.
Their Obrecht record is a fine one and the music is truly superb (but it takes time and should be played at least two times in a row and sort of meditated upon).

 

Can't stand the Tallis Scholars. Have a handful of their CDs, bought on Gramophone recommendations, each time hoping that the current would be better than the last. I gave up - too suite/sweet by far.

 

That's interesting and probably true of certain records and repertoire. But could you elaborate a little? What do you like in vocal polyphony?

 

It's not that I don't like vocal polyphony - I love it. Back in the very early 80s Archiv had a series of 10 LPs with Bruno Turner & Pro Cantione Antiqua. Slightly rough and insecure sometimes, but real music-making.

It's the Tallis Scholars I can't stand. All ultra-smooth and saccharine sweet. They're the Karajan of the polyphonic world!

... but then I like things a bit rough: I'm the chap who prefers Harnoncourt/Leonhardt in the Bach Cantatas and who finds Gardiner too clever by half!

 

Ah! Bruno Turner and the Pro Cantione Antiqua... Fond memories. I listened to them live a lot of times and, as a matter of fact, I was thinking of Pro Cantione Antiqua when I mentioned the eerie sound of a male alto.

I can understand what you say, but I'm fond of curves. Yes, Thge Tallis Scholars are very smooth, but in a way the Palestrina tradition - the Catholic one - relies heavily on that: celestial harmony on Earth.

When I play Rennaissance polyphony on the organ I try, mostly in vain I must say, to capture the flow of voices that seems to lead to Eternity - a suspension of time.

Of course, the organ does not allow for that - I mean, you cannot depend on the same means to achieve these ends, and we must be contented with a rather more forceful approach. But I'm not ashamed to say that teh Tallis are the model I try to emulate.

But, as a matter of fact, many of the Renaissance counterpoint is rather more expressive than the Tallis wish to acknowledge - I know it from playing the very same counterpoint on the organ or the harpsichord (the organ really suits this music best).

And so you might be right. Nevertheless, they do sound gorgeous.

Rereading this, I see I said nothing at all. I said that you are right, that Tones and Bat are also right. I'm feeling too ecumenical. is it because I've been working non-stop from 7 a.m.?

The bottom line is this: I tried to answer, but the answer is idiotic. At least I am a polite idiot!

I really wish you posted more often! I'm not being polite, now (perhaps just idiotic? )

Well, whatever.

 

Well, thanks RDS, but the truth is, I don't have anything very much to say most of the time, just the odd ill-considered prejudice!