Blue Heron, Christmas in Medieval England

One more for the last-minute folks out there. It is the early music vocal ensemble Blue Heron and their Christmas Music in Medieval England (Blue Heron 1006), a collection of carols, music for Mass, plainchant and motets one might likely have heard in one way or another at this time of year in England circa 1440, when the last of this music was composed. We get modern early music performance practice in the ten member choral group divided into the cantus, the contratenor, tenor and bassus parts. The album sequence was as heard live in concert on various nights in December, 2013, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The group sounds excellent under the directorship of Scott Metcalfe. Some of the music is accompanied by medieval harp, as would have been appropriate. The texts are in Latin and English in the style of pronunciation in use at that time. So the "Hayl Mary, ful of Grace" pronounces Grace as "Grahse."

It is music that is very beautiful and performed with spirit by the ensemble. If you tend to early Christmas music or even grew up with some of it, you will doubtless recognize "Veni, veni Emanuel," "Ther is no rose of swych vertu" and "Nova, nova! Ave fit ex Eva" among others. Yet there is much that may not be familiar.

It is all fitting and rather haunting. You listen and you feel time passing. Some may have had ancestors who heard or even performed this music, but no matter if not, because this is not music of exclusion. In the same way as most in the United States greet one another with the phrase "Happy Holidays" this time of year, so this is music about the joy of the season, no matter what you subscribe to in sectarian terms. Freedom of religion is the freedom to honor the creation in the manner of your choosing, without punishment or recrimination. And so you are free to listen to this music on whatever level you choose, with the idea that the music reflects an important period in the history of Western music, as so in the world at large with musical traditions centered around religion in so many various ways.

Perhaps more to the point at hand, this is a beautiful selection of music that does not even begin to exhaust what has survived of the period, yet it provides an excellent sampling of the various genres in play during the times.

Blue Heron is a fine group and they sound quite inspired on this album. Highly recommended! Happy holidays!

The Hilliard Ensemble, Transeamus: English Carols and Motets

"There is no rose of such virtue..." so the old Christmas carol goes. But roses, in our contemporary world anyway, are destined, like us all, to cease to be some day. And sad to say, the same thing is true of musical congregations. Transeamus: English Carols and Motets (ECM New Series 2408481 1106) will be the last album of the Hilliard Ensemble on ECM. They are retiring. They have graced our ears with early vocal music for decades and done some wonderful work in the contemporary vein, too. They have been a superb exponent of vocal color and nuance, one of the guiding lights of early music performance practices today. So we have one last album, of 15th century two- and three-part polyphony for Christmastide and on other related sacred subjects. For us they have been a blossoming, a rose if you will, and the season of the full flowering is passing, at least as an ensemble.

We take solace in this beautiful album. Certain music has the power to bring back a past long-gone. To me that certainly is true of early music for Christmas (and for that matter, a great Jewish Cantor performing music of an earlier age). It connects us with a past that humanity lived through. We feel a commonality with them, for we live, too.

The program is a good one, with music both familiar and less so, "There is No Rose" along with "Clangat Tuba" both by an anonymous composer. There are others by unknown hands, plus those by John Plummer, Walter Lambe, William Cornysh and Sheryngham.

Throughout it all there is the Hilliard Ensemble, a small vocal group who realizes polyphonic vocal music with a sweetness and light that make them inimitable. They sound great as usual on Transeamus, which aptly translates as "we travel on". And so we do, all of us, headed from here to where we will.

A singular album this is, in the simple small ensemble format but with a richness of timbre and recorded sound that stays in your ears long after the music has ended. May it never end.

John Holloway, Pavans and Fantasies from the Age of Dowland

John Dowland's music often had a special melancholic mood to it, no more so than in his Pavans. Over his lifetime (1563-1626) and in that age in general there were others who wrote music that was tinged with a sadness that must have struck a nerve with the music audiences of the day. John Holloway's Pavans and Fantasies from the Age of Dowland (ECM New Series B0020796-02) gives us an entire program of characteristic music as composed by Dowland and his contemporaries.

Violin-Violist John Holloway leads a string quintet through 13 relatively brief but quite moving pieces. The ensemble of strings led by Holloway is not typical by modern standards, but not necessarily out of place for the performances of these works in the original period. Much of the music was meant to be played by lute alone, or lute with strings, or strings alone. Holloway decided for a quintet of two violins/violas, two violas and a bass violin which suits the part-writing quite well and gives the music a somewhat darker tone than other possibilities would have done.

For John Dowland's masterpiece, the "Seven Pavanes--Seven Teares" all four of the upper-range string players play viola, which are closer in range and tone to the violons of Dowland's era. Interspersed between these remarkable works are six works that more or less parallel the mood and fill out the program nicely. They are short, often equally melancholic works by Henry Purcell, William Lawes (2), John Jenkins, Thomas Morley, and Matthew Locke.

The interspersing of other period works in between the Dowland affords contrast and makes for more dramatic re-entrances of the characteristic melody line that begins each Dowland Pavan in this series.

In the end we get a beautifully sad Elizabethan, late-Renaissance evening of exquisite music, played with sensitivity and subtlety by Holloway's string consort. The music thrives with a pure, vibrato-less playing style that brings to the music a natural, pre-romantic balance that conveys feeling in a more contemplative, less exhibitionistic way than is typical of later periods.

It is a very satisfying, convincing performance of music that combines a dark sorrow with a sweet-bittersweet aura that was perhaps unique to Dowland and the English school of his day. Holloway and his ensemble do the music total justice. Hearken and you will find much to appreciate!

La Cite des Dames, Carles Magraner, Capella de Ministrers

The unusually themed, beautifully produced album I have before me brings us a side of the culture and music of the Middle Ages we do not encounter often unless we are specialists on the period in relation to women. La Cite des Dames by Carles Magraner leading the Capella de Ministrers (CdM 1333) is based on the Book of the City of Ladies, a feminist utopia of sorts written by Christine de Pizan in the early 15th century. It was penned in reaction to the disparagement of women in medieval society as contained in philosophy and theology writings then current. She envisions a City of Women, where females of virtue and ability take on all the civil and cultural functions of a metropolis.

The 2-CD set and nicely produced hard-cover booklet that accompanies it seek to recreate that female city, in paintings of the era and music sung by women, often written by women composers. This is music of the Middle Ages in modern performance practice, where the music is reconstructed with all-original instrumentation in what one may say results in a more folk-ethnic sound than was the case in typical recordings before around 1970.

It is a series of sacred and secular music by Hildegard of Bingen and a host of woman composers whose names you probably have not heard of before: Herrada de Landsberg, Abadia de Fleury, Beatriz de Dia but then also Ana Bolena. There are some anonymous musical figures here and there as well but everything fits together convincingly as an imaginative musical portrait of a world where women do it all as well or better than men.

This is memorable music performed with real period sensitivity by the Capella de Ministrers. Musical director Carles Magraner prepared the program with some care. The results are quite near magical.

Highly recommended!

Jean-Marie Leclair, The Complete Sonatas for Two Violins, Greg Ewer, Adam Lamotte

The baroque French music of Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764) does not have a great deal of currency or circulation these days, at least in my world. But after hearing the Greg Ewer-Adam Lamotte recordings of his The Complete Sonatas for Two Violins (Sono Luminus 92176 2-CDs and Blu-ray) I find myself gravitating towards his music, happily.

The full set of sonatas takes up two CDs. The music is varied and lively. According to the liner notes it was during his stay in Italy, studying with Quantz and violinist Giovanni Battista Somis, that Leclair's music took a decisive turn. In those days, double- and multiple-stops were unknown to the classical violin in France. Leclair picked that up from Somis and absorbed the bravura style of the Italians in general, though the violin sonatas still show much of the refinement typical of the French school of the era. This you can hear to excellent effect on the sonatas.

Greg Ewer and Adam Lamotte do a fine job performing the works. They capture the natural buoyancy of the music, giving us readings that are both sweet and dynamic. The combination of multiple-stops and the way the voicings are constructed bring you a full sound that forwards the perception of a larger group than is the case. The liner notes cue us to listen for that and indeed, you can readily hear it throughout.

As with the bulk of Sono Luminus releases, there is a standard stereo mix (on the two CDs) plus a 5:1 version on a Blue-ray disk. Either way the sound is excellent.

Those who appreciate spirited early music performances of works not well known will revel in this music. But the album affords a good deal of pleasure regardless of your background. It's an excellent set!

Oswald von Wolkenstein, The Cosmopolitan, Songs, Ensemble Leones, Marc Lewon

Oswald von Wolkenstein (1336?-1445), songster-composer, poet and diplomat, a member of the South Tyrolean nobility. . . . not a name on the tip of one's tongue unless you are a specialist in the late middle ages-early renaissance, but nonetheless a figure of stature.

Ensemble Leone, under the direction of Marc Lewon, give us a rather full look at the composer side of Wolkenstein with The Cosmopolitan (Christophorus). Ensemble Leone comprises six members, vocalists and multi-instrumentalists of a good assortment of period instruments.

Von Wolkenstein's songs are interspersed with instrumental pieces for dance or entertainment. As has been the case since the sixties of last century, the ensemble takes pains to bring out the unique timbres and almost "ethnic" flavor of the secular music then in style. Unlike music for the church there is some part singing but not as a main focus.

The songs form of course the body of the presentation. Ensemble Leone have fine vocalists who project the basically vibrato-less folk vocal qualities of the period. The songs are treated acapella or with small-to-larger-sized instrumental accompaniment. Instrumental selections vary quite nicely as well in terms of the instruments involved for any given number.

Anyone who wants to understand our current era probably should sample deeply the modern early music recordings that are now so plentiful. We are in an age that has "discovered" this music in a way similar to how the romantic era rediscovered Bach. Along with our heightened knowledge of world traditions there are universes of possibilities to discover.

Ensemble Leones' fine program of von Wolkenstein's music is a great pleasure to hear, an indispensable addition to your early music collection. They give us excellent performances of music of depth and beauty.