Arvo Pärt – Passio

Tags

Arvo Pärt, Hilliard Ensemble, Passio, Paul Hillier, sacred music, Tintinnabuli

Humility, surrender, transcendence

Arvo Pärt’s transcendent music is always a deep experience, demanding attention and engagement from the listener. And whilst the musical lines may seem simple, they are not simplistic, and leave nowhere for musician or singer to hide. Without fidelity and surrender, his music can seem like some kind of technical exercise. Which is very very far from what it is.

Being lucky enough to attend a recent concert performance of Passio, sent me back to listen to The Hilliard Ensemble rendition, conductor Paul Hillier. This is a long piece, and not one for our InstaGratification Hummable Tunes culture. It is not, in any way, a ‘background piece’ and unfolds itself through its single, 70 minute, unbroken movement. How can ‘The Passion’ be properly realised, glimmeringly felt, if the journey is not undertaken, and ‘snapshot moments’ only are listened to on the hoof?

This music in its purity and careful threading and weaving, requires an extraordinary precision and control to hold the length, flow and placement of the close, dissonant harmonies.

From the crushing, almost overwhelmingly heavy opening of the piece, hopeless, doom laden, arises beautiful, single threads of music and voices, offering, surely some tenderness, some way out of despair, despite suffering. The bass, solo lines of Jesus are steadfast and firm, and musically give a kind of foundation for the other voices, and musical lines to relate to. To sorrowfully, tenderly, and in the end – not quite triumphally, but with the possibility of achieving something hopeful, out of pain, out of despair, soar. The end both breaks, and releases, the heart.

This is indeed a fabulous rendition. Though the experience, of course, of a live performance – The Façade Ensemble, conductor Benedict Collins Rice, offers an intensity that solitary attentiveness to a recording, can never do

This particular version may no longer be easily available as a new CD, though market place (used) copies are available or download on MP3. And of course, though the technical quality might be somewhat flawed, you can at least hear it on You Tube

The Hilliard Ensemble, alas, disbanded three years ago. Oh that I had ever heard them deliver this live!Paul Hillier was a founder member of The Hilliards and, later of Theatre of Voices. Hilliard was named for the Elizabethan miniaturist, I believe, rather than for Hillier, though perhaps the connection suggested itself

Arvo Pärt Passio Amazon UK
Arvo Pärt Passio Amazon USA

Advertisement

Zelenka – Missa dei Filii

Tags

baroque, Classical music, Czech composer, Jan Dismas Zelenka, sacred music

Enjoying Zelly with due zeal

Having recently discovered Zelenka by some chance or other, I very quickly became enamoured!

He is sometimes referred to as `the Catholic Bach’

There is certainly a greater degree of sumptuous opulence in this music than in JSB, and indeed I had many images of gold, red velvet, richly painted icons, stained glass windows and the like fill my mind, as I listened. There is also a particularly, I can only describe it as bouncy, quality to his music – listen to that opening Kyrie, which is almost folksy.

This is music which has a certain earthiness to it, a flesh and blood quality. It never quite leaves the ground, there is some sort of pragmatic, tangible joy, rather than austerity or mysticism (both of which I also love, musically) Here, I almost expect the choir to be dancing with each other, swinging each other round, wearing elaborate traditional high-days-and-holidays costumes (listen to that Gloria!) Most unseemly behaviour in a church – but why not!

This is a delight in the divine, a joyousness. The musical runs in the Gloria made it hard to sit still. Had I heard it in a church setting I’m sure I would have been expelled for bad behaviour, as it would be necessary to skip and twirl in the aisles!

What a very happy and energetic performance of Zelly this is. Reviewer bounces off into the sunshine, skipping and leaping the Gloria!

Here is a website devoted to all things Zelenka – including also the fact most ‘supposed’ images of Zelenka are NOT of Mr Jan-far-from-Dismal at all! Zelenka site

Zelenka – Missa Dei Filii Amazon UK
Unfortunately there does not appear to be an option to hear this version on mp3 on Amazon USA though the CD exists, albeit with a different cover, though it IS the same version, reissued
Zelenka – Missa Dei Filii Amazon USA

Ockeghem: Requiem; Missa Fors Seulement

Tags

Classical music, Early music, Music review, Ockeghem, sacred music, The Clerk's Group

Crystalline castles In The Air

This beautiful collection of music by Ockeghem
, Brumel and de la Rue is stunning.

For the first time, I can really see the close connection between music and maths. These pieces are composed of such close and weaving harmonies, that they seem to create a sacred geometry of sound space, constructing something almost architectural in its balance and perfectly poised tensions. Listening to this, its at times impossible to work out whether the music is rising or falling, expanding or diminishing and contracting, as it seems to perform those oppositions all at once.

Though I am particularly drawn to music which is suffused with a longing, which feels as if can never come to fruition or resolution, this music comes from a different place. The devotion and faith which created it seem totally secure. The musical lines seem always to be resolved, even as they move to resolution. There is such a sense of always renewing balance.

That’s the music itself, and then there is the combination of fluidity and control from The Clerk’s Group, an effortless, everflowing stream of voices, building this rare fantastical soundscape.

The whole CD is a delight, but track 4, Fors seulement l’attente, chanson for 3 voices, is a pinnacle of pinnacles

Pictures of Manuscript and Ockeghem from Wikimedia Commons
Ockeghem: Requiem; Missa Fors Seulement Amazon UK
Ockeghem: Requiem; Missa Fors Seulement Amazon USA

Arvo Pärt – Sanctuary

Tags

Arvo Pärt, Classical music, Music review, sacred music

Music arising out of, and returning into, the empty space

Arvo Pärt’s sense of the numinous imbues his music. It would be difficult to imagine a composer without a spiritual faith creating this – not just because clearly some of the tracks come out of a tradition of Christian choral music.

This is music which demands the listener settles into spacious, unyearning waiting. Many tracks arise out of a quite long period of no-sound, a prolonged pause, and this is part of the piece itself.

The opening track Cantus In Memoriam, Benjamin Britten, starts with a typical Part single bell, there is an opening, high transcendency, an ascending, and the journey of the piece then continues to slowly build textures and layers of strings, getting deeper and more sombre, more dense, more clay like, a body returning to the earth, to burial, the bell notes now sombre.

The second track teases with similarities at the opening to another piece which comes from a relationship to death, and to faith, Gorecki – Symphony No.3: Sorrowful Songs

The vocal pieces are sweet and grave, even ‘Magnificat’ is quiet in its fullness

Pärts approach to faith is personal, self-effacing. There’s little triumphalism, little ostentation, few grandly glorious moments of easy comforts. The music is curiously humble, surrendering, the use of strings drawn out endless sostenuto, slow repetitions of phrases, slow accretions of texture, unfoldings, returns, and again unfoldings and infoldings. This is faith that can embrace despair, deep grief, and doubt. I have experienced hearing Part’s music live, in concert. It is the experience of joint meditation practice, silent contemplation, guided and supported by music which is always connected to an eternal, dynamic stillness.

The only track which hints that this quiet place, though always present, is also readily lost, is the final piece, the aptly named Tabula Rasa for 2 violins, ‘prepared piano’ and chamber orchestra. The violins arise out of that still place, and again and again are briefly interrupted by a repeating rush of short piano interjections; these go nowhere, and fall back down into the stillness of sustained and twining strings. A very beautiful mirroring of a meditation practice, where out of silence, the mind emerges into chatter, and can be allowed to sink again into the dynamic no-thing, from whence again thoughts will arise, scurry and be allowed to dissolve.

Unfortunately I can’t find this particular CD on a link to mp3 listening, it is a collection of his pieces, with different choirs and orchestras, taken from other CDs where one choir and one orchestra performs different selections of his work

Arvo Pärt-Sanctuary Amazon UK
Arvo Pärt-Sanctuary Amazon USA

Jocelyn Pook – Flood

Tags

Africa, Early music, Flood, Jocelyn Pook, Kathleen Ferrier, Music review, sacred music, Soundtrack, World music review

The weird, wonderful, Puckish Ms. Pook

Jocelyn Pook’s fascination with both the sacred early music traditions of Christianity, and the music of northern Africa, the nomadic tradition and Islamic influence, easily puts a girdle round the earth in 40 minutes.

From the beginning track where ethereal female voices sing a choral Requiescat, she moves into something which opens out the horizons on the second track, with a vista of sandy deserts and nomadic camel riders, except that the strange beat, the synthesised soundscape behind the ululating female voices, suggest an almost other world, futuristic planet.

The fourth track, Oppenheimer, where the narrative voice at the beginning makes reference to Hindu devotional texts, Vishnu the destroyer, is apocalyptic. There is a harsh, windy soundscape which sounds like the end of the world has happened, through which weave and interweave prayerful music from Christianity and equally devotionally intense music of Arabic influence. It is almost like some final, terrible battle between major faiths, and at the end of things is harshness, and the beauty which mankind created (music) left to remind us of the devotion and the savagery of faiths.

Another track starts with the urban voices of children at play, and weaves the rich voice of Kathleen Ferrier singing Blow the Winds Southerly with the small soprano female choir singing a Pie Jesu. Pook clashes worlds together in an utterly new, hypnotic way

I don’t know who is responsible for the primary female vocals on most of the tracks, the floated voice, but it is sublime!
Jocelyn Pook – Flood Amazon UK
Jocelyn Pook – Flood Amazon USA

Vivaldi – Stabat mater. David Daniels, Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante

Tags

baroque, Classical music, countertenor, David Daniels, Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi, Music review, sacred music, Vivaldi

I first came across the American counter-tenor David Daniels in a Live at the Met in HD showing of The Enchanted Isle, and immediately became absolutely captivated by and addicted to, this voice.

It is probably wrong (though understandable) to focus almost completely on the countertenor here, as of course we have a whole group of musicians involved in the experience, so the wonderfulness is a shared production, but the pieces do place the singer centre stage, and it is the role of the musicians to provide unobtrusive, fabulously sensitive support to the strange magic of the countertenor. And Biondi and Europa Galanti are exactly in place, providing this.

There are 3 pieces of music here, the Stabat Mater, Nisi Dominus (Psalm 26) and Longe Mala. I can’t pick apart the technicalities of the pieces, only surrender to them, and to this beautiful, strange, warm and yet ethereal, effortless and brilliantly sparkling voice, a voice seems to come from some angelic realm – not a little cherub of an angel, but an angel whose shining is too bright to look upon. Possibly I’m still carrying the image of Daniels as the almost on the edge of dark magician (Prospero) from The Enchanted Isle here, but this voice really is almost, properly, something truly magical. Surely Daniels has been possessed by some musical elemental, surrendered himself to some celestial entity of singing. No words can convey it…listen and surrender.

The penultimate track of Longe Mala particularly is so profoundly beautiful in its quiet, reflective yearning that it reaches the point where the pleasure in the passing moments is almost too much to bear.

(and other, fortunately unwritten passages, too purple and fulsome with praise to want to read, or write!) Just buy this!
Vivaldi Stabat Mater

Pergolesi – Stabat mater. Kirkby, Bowman, Hogwood, Academy of Ancient Music

Tags

Academy of Ancient Music, baroque, Christopher Hogwood, Classical music, countertenor, Emma Kirkby, James Bowman, Music review, Pergolesi, sacred music

Almost unbearable in plangent magic

What a piece of work this is. I have had this version for a while, and recently bought the David Daniels, Biondi Europa Galante version, Pergolesi Stabat Mater Salve Regina because of the glorious seduction of the Daniels/Biondi/Europa Galante team on the Vivaldi – Stabat Mater, Etc, principally because Daniels is the countertenor par excellence for me.

However, trying to compare these 2 versions this wins, despite the fact of Daniels on the other. Kirkby’s ethereal purity of voice wins out big time for me over Röschmann, but Daniels, ah Daniels takes the biscuit over Bowman, on the solo countertenor sections, though the blend of Kirkby and Bowman together, how their voices weave, is utterly beautiful. – as is the richer, fleshier blend of Daniels and Roschmann – but for me Roschmann is far too sumptuously voluptuous for this piece – not to mention Europa Galante take the music with such bounce, it is almost terpsichorean. Full of vibrancy, brio, opulence – operatic and theatrical.

To come back, however to Kirkby, Hogwood, Academy of Ancient Music and Bowman. Well, to be most particular, come back to Kirkby. In her vocal lines the spiritual, sacred nature of the piece is expressed most tenderly, most yearningly,. However flamboyant and brilliant the music itself is, in the weaving of its lines, this is ultimately NOT an operatic piece, there is a sense of loss, and grief and desolation not to mention surrender which is there. The Hogwood et al is more austere, more lachrymosa, more nakedly suffering. I believe the emotion in this version, because as listener I am pulled in to inhabit it. Yes of course the music itself does have an almost muscular spring to it, but the Hogwood reins it in, creating a tension which is appropriate, whereas Europa Galante go bouncy castle, which feels wrong as if it wrongs the nature of the piece. Unlike the Vivaldi Stabat Mater mentioned earlier the Europa Galante Pergolesi does not break and melt my heart

This Hogwood version is a piece of devotion, the Galante an artwork suggesting devotion

Pergolesi Kirkby