San Francisco Classical Voice

In its Friday night performance of Ademar's Apostolic Mass, New York's Ensemble for Early Music filled the vast spaces of the Stanford Memorial Church with the sounds of medieval plainsong. The beautiful singing and almost flawless delivery of this six-voice group made it easy for the audience to forget the deeply controversial nature of the music.

The appealing image of "medieval music" or "plainchant" as coming from a world of unity, peace, and tranquility, of secluded monasteries where order prevails, is far from the truth. Music in the 11th century could provoke as much controversy as in the 19th or 20th, and some works, such as Ademar de Chabannes' 1029 Apostolic Mass for Saint Martial, caused opening-night riots that would probably rival any in a modern Paris concert hall. Ademar composed it to bolster the folk legend that his local hero, a third-century missionary bishop named Martial, was in fact one of the original 12 apostles who walked with Jesus in Galilee and should receive all the honor due to an apostle.

Although Ademar was the first composer in Europe to sign his work, other monks and clerics had been composing new chant for hundreds of years. They wrote text and music in honor of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the vast array of saints venerated by local churches and budding pilgrimage sites. The Apostolic Mass was one such project -- and, in effect, a breathtaking work of poetic fraud. No one in medieval France seriously believed that this famous third-century churchman was in fact a Galilean missionary. But Ademar knew that building up the legend would make his abbey of St. Martial in Limoges one of the most prosperous pilgrimage sites in Christendom.

In Ademar's captivating poetry we see Martial seated with his "cousin" (!) St. Peter at the Last Supper and being sent personally by Christ to preach to the Gauls. Although the poet/composer mustered all his creative skill, his project ultimately failed. The premiere of the Apostolic Mass, on August 3, 1029, was a disaster. Benedict of Chiusa, an itinerant monk from Lombardy, interrupted the music as it was beginning, shouting that the veneration of Martial as a "13th apostle" was not only ridiculous but an act of blasphemy against Jesus and his real followers. It was obvious, he said, that the abbey of St. Martial was simply looking for fame and money. There was a public outcry, the singing was stopped, and the unfortunate Ademar was run out of town the very next day. He left France and retired to Jerusalem, where he spent the rest of his life manufacturing evidence for the apostolic status of his beloved Martial. He left 257 sheets of music in his own hand, the most we have from any composer before Guillaume de Machaut in the 14th century.

Both text and melody of the Apostolic Mass have an unusual intensity, which was brought out marvelously by the singers of the Ensemble for Early Music. The six men come from quite diverse artistic backgrounds. Several are professional actors as well as musicians, and all have experience in various musical genres, from Baroque cantatas to modern opera. Some medieval-music groups tend toward a placid and emotionally neutral delivery, but this ensemble brought as much energy to Ademar's ecstatic praise of Christ and his "apostle" as other singers bring to Britten or Bach.

The opening piece of music, the one interrupted in 1029 by the angry visitor, lasts nearly 25 minutes. Its refrain comes back again and again, interlaced with Ademar's elaborate poetry on the life and virtues of St. Martial. Not once did it become dull. The group uses a kaleidoscopic variety of solo voices (the ensemble is made up of four tenors, a baritone, and a bass), carefully chosen, because the chant explores different ranges. When they sang the refrain together, from memory, all six voices moved as one. In the later movements, when the music became faster and more adventurous, the singers watched each other constantly for subtle visual cues.

Perhaps the most astonishing part of the performance, and one that sets the Ensemble for Early Music apart from many others in its field, was the absence of a conductor. Watching the constant give-and-take between these skilled musicians, singing complex music with no outside direction, reminded me more of a string quartet or a first-class jazz combo than of an early-music choir. This style of performance is a tightrope act, and they rarely if ever faltered. Even the cynical modern listener might believe, if only for a moment, that Ademar's "apostolic" dreams were as real as the glorious sound that filled the room.

(Kerry McCarthy is a doctoral candidate in musicology at Stanford University. She is currently directing a series of 13 feast-day services from the Gradualia of William Byrd.)

©2000 Kerry McCarthy, all rights reserved