Victoria

The Renaissance Singers at 80

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Sing Joyfully
The Renaissance Singers at 80
Renaissance Singers, The San Trovaso Consort, David Allinson
St. George’s Bloomsbury. 29 June 2024

Robert Fayrfax: Magnificat ‘Regale’ a5
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Super flumina Babylonis a4
Jacobus Clemens: Ego flos campi a7
Orlando Lassus: Missa Puisque j’ay perdu a4, Kyrie and Agnus Dei
Heinrich Isaac: Virgo Prudentissima a6

Thomas Luis de Victoria: Four Mairan Antiphons
Alma redemptoris mater a8; Ave regina caelorum a8; Salve regina a8; Ave Maria a8
Mikolaj Zielenski: Magnificat a12

In July 1944, a newly formed choir gave its first concert as V2 bombs fell on London. Founded by Michael Howard, The Renaissance Singers was seen as the performing wing of the Renaissance Society and were motivated by a love of Renaissance vocal music. They aimed to recover lost masterpieces and share them with new audiences. At the time, the repertoire was unfamiliar, and there were few if any performing additions. Early audience members included Ralph Vaughan William, who became their second President. Under its current Musical Director David Allinson it is now one of the UK’s leading amateur chamber choirs specialising in early music, pioneering neglected composers, bringing original programmes to new audiences, and collaborating with top-flight musicians in a year-round programme of concerts and workshops.

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The Queen’s Six: Journeys to the New World

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Journeys to the New World
Hispanic Sacred Music from the 16th & 17th centuries
The Queen’s Six
Signum Classics SIGCD626. 66’23

The Queen’s Six are all based at Windsor Castle where they are Lay Clerks at St George’s Chapel. They promote themselves as providing a “unique style of entertainment” with a repertoire that “extends far beyond the reach of the choir stalls: from austere early chant, florid Renaissance polyphony, lewd madrigals and haunting folk songs, to upbeat Jazz and Pop arrangements”. Perhaps fortunately, on this recording they remain firmly in the choir stalls for some Renaissance New World polyphony dating from the mid-16th century to c1700.

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Diego Ortiz: Trattado de Glosas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Diego Ortiz: Trattado de Glosas
Les Basses Réunies
Bruno Cocset, Guido Balestracci
Outhere: Alpha 563. 59’31

We know little about the life of Diego Ortiz (c1510-c1576). He is believed to have been born in Toledo, and worked in Naples for Ferdinand Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba when he was the Spanish Viceroy there. He eventually became Maestro di Cappella of the Neapolitan Chapel Royal. He seems to have spent his final years in Rome. He published his influential Trattado de glossas sobre clausulas y otros generos de puntos en la musica de violones nuevamente puestos en luz in 1553, while in Naples. Continue reading →

Contrapunctus: Salve, Salve, Salve

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Salve, Salve, Salve
Josquin’s Spanish Legacy
Contrapunctus, Owen Rees
Signum SIGCD608. 71’02

Cristóbal de Morales: Jubilate Deo omnis terra
Tomás Luis de Victoria: Missa Gaudeamus, Salve regina
Francisco Guerrero:Ave virgo sanctissima, Surge propera, amica mea
Josquin Desprez: Salve regina

Some of the most interesting recordings and performances of early music in the UK over the past decades has come from (generally Oxbridge) scholars whose academic research interests led them into (or kept them in) academia, many achieving high academic office. One such is Owen Rees, like many such, a former Oxbridge organ scholar. He is now Professor of Music at Oxford University and Fellow and Director of Music at The Queen’s College. His research interests are Iberian and English vocal music of the Renaissance, and his professional vocal group Contrapunctus allows this research to be presented to a wider musical audience. Their latest recording explores the influence of Josquin Desprez on Morales, Guerrero, and Victoria, the rather disparate composers united by their use of ostinato (the repetition of a motif throughout a piece), a technique inspired by Josquin.

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A Renaissance Christmas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

A Renaissance Christmas
The Sixteen, Harry Christophers
Coro, COR16167. 67’11

A Renaissance Christmas

The publicity blurb that came with this CD refers to it as “a perfect alternative to traditional carols”, and it certainly is. Perhaps trying to seek forgiveness for their 2015 release, The Complete Traditional Christmas Carols Collection (recorded in 1991), The Sixteen here concentrate on music from the Renaissance era. They bring their particular brand of highly professional choral singing to a well-balanced sequence of pieces from composers born between 1505 and 1580, a period when the Renaissance reached its zenith as religion in Europe reached one of its periodic nadirs. Continue reading →

Secret History

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

John Potter: Secret History
Josquin/Victoria
ECM New Series ECM2119

It’s been a while since the names of John Potter and ECM have been linked in an ‘early music’ recording, the last being back in Potter’s Hilliard Ensemble days. This recording was made in 2011, and was the first time this group of musicians had got together. It pre-dates their later recording Amores Pasados published in 2015. The result is a radical re-think of Renaissance music performance, not least in reducing complex polyphony to just one or two vocal lines, sung by John Potter and Anna Maria Friman, the remaining voices being played on vihuelas (an early form of guitar, tuned like a lute) by Ariel Abramovich, Jacob Haringman, and Lee Santana. In the opening eight-part Mouton Nesciens mater for example, they sing the two paired superius lines, in the form of a canon at the fifth, very occasionally switching to one of the other six voices. The three vihuelas play the remaining pairs of voices, which are all also in the same strict canonic form. An extraordinary feat of contrapuntal writing, reduced to comparative simplicity.  Continue reading →

In honour of the Virgin

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

In honour of the Virgin
The Cardinall’s Musick
St John’s, Smith Square. 14 December 2016

facebook_1482140390703 (1).jpgThe 31st St John’s, Smith Square Christmas Festival features most of the usual suspects, including regulars, The Cardinall’s Musick. As is typical of their concerts, the focus was on Catholic liturgical music from the Renaissance, on this occasion in honour of the Virgin Mary. In a ‘greatest hits’ line-up of Renaissance composers, the first half was built around Lassus’s Missa Osculeter me osculo oris sui alternating with motets by Victoria; the second centered on Byrd’s Propers for the Nativity of the Virgin Mary and concluded with Palestrina’s Magnificat primi toni a 8. 

I have never quite understood how the Song of Songs managed to get accepted into the Bible. However much commentators from the Jewish or Christian tradition attempt to find allegorical links in the Song of Solomon, in the latter case, with the New Testament stories, it remains so obviously an evocation of sexual love of a most explicit kind: the closest that Solomon could get to internet porn. Continue reading →

O Come, Emmanuel!

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

O Come, Emmanuel!
Ensemble Plus Ultra
St John’s, Smith Sq. 17 December 2015

Victoria: Missa Ave Regina caelorum; Byrd: Lady Mass Advent Propers; Hieronymus Praetorius: Magnificat quinti toni, and pieces by Morales, Michael Praetorius etc.

As part of the 30th annual St John’s, Smith Square Christmas Festival, Ensemble Plus Ultra contributed a programme of Advent and Christmas music from Spain, England, and Germany. The rather curious opening had three female singers on stage, while five men approached down the two side aisles, deconstructing the Advent chant Veni, veni Emmanuel by passing it between all three groups. The rest of the first half was a very effective interspersing of Victoria’s 1600 Missa Ave Regina caelorum with Byrd’s 1607 five-part Propers for Lady Mass during Advent. This was preceded by Victoria’s 1581 double choir setting of the Missa Ave Regina caelorum antiphon, upon which the parody mass was based. Although the Continue reading →

Tenebrae by Candlelight

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Tenebrae by Candlelight
Chapelle du Roi – Alistair Dixon director
St John’s, Smith Square, 1 April 2015

Palestrina: Lamentations, Gesualdo: Tenebrae Responds, Victoria: O Domine Jesu, Mass: Ave Regina, Ave Regina Coelorum, de Monte: Super Flumina Babylonis, Tallis: Lamintations I&II,  In Jejunio et Fletu, Derelinquit Impius, Byrd: Emendemus in Melius, Guerrero: O Domine Jesu.

The regular pre-Christmas and pre-Easter concerts in St John’s, Smith Square given by the vocal group Chapelle du Roi continued with one of their best yet as they celebrated ‘Tenebrae by Candlelight’.  ‘Celebrated’ is a loose term, as this was not a liturgical reconstruction, but a reflection on the music for Holy Week generally intended for use during the Tenebrae service.  The monastic service of Tenebrae was a combination of the office of Matins, normally sung just before sunrise, and the sunrise service Continue reading →

Cardinall’s @ Cadogan

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

The Psalms of David are a key part of the liturgy of Christian and Jewish worship, and were rather nicely described by the (un-named) programme note writer of The Cardinall’s Musick concert (Cadogan Hall, 5 Feb) as a “collection of praises and complaints, benedictions and moans … dealing with the problems of ordinary life”.  Their programme looked at two of the many possible musical genres, comparing the European Catholic tradition of the 16th century with that of the English church of the same period, described by director Andrew Carwood as a collection of “sorbets and grand dishes”.

The 10 singers were used in many different formations, only coming together at the end of each half, firstly for the Allegri Miserere and then Byrd’s joyful Laudibus in sanctis.  After the opening Jubilate Deo by Giovanni Gabrieli, the first half was built around three of Victoria’s large-scale double-choir Vespers Psalm settings, Nisi Dominus, Dixit Dominus and Laudate Dominum.  These were contrasted with more intimate settings, notably Palestrina’s Super flumina Babylonis, with its closely-wrought stepwise musical lines, and the Ad Dominum cum tribularer by Lassus with its contrast between high and low voices.  The often intense English settings were intended for a very different liturgical purpose, usually as anthems during Evensong or Mattins, or for more private devotions.   Only with the opening Gibbons’ ‘O clap your hands together’ and the final Byrd Laudibus in sanctis did the English music approach the grandeur of Victoria’s settings.  Indeed, it was the intimate and madrigal-like ‘O Lord in thy wrath’ and Laboravi in gemitu meo (by Gibbons and Weelkes respectively) that were the emotional highlights for me.

The rather youthful photographs of Andrew Carwood and Cardinall’s Musick belied the fact that they are in their 25th year.  They were on excellent form on this occasion, their forthright vocal style ideal for the large-scale works as well as seeking out the emotional intensity of the more intimate works.

[https://andrewbensonwilson.org/2015/03/30/cardinalls-cadogan-5-feb-2015/]