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EARLY MUSIC REVIEW
April 2, 2004
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By Rebekah Ahrendt
What was so wild about Renaissance polyphony that it came under fire during the 16th century? Peter Phillips and the Tallis Scholars gave the audience a taste of both the old style and the new last Friday. Filling Stanford's Memorial Church with washes of vocal color, the Tallis Scholars took the packed house on a journey that traversed the spectrum of the Renaissance.
The program revealed the many changes that polyphony went through in the Renaissance. The style of the earlier part of this period was very complicated, causing religious leaders to call for a ban on polyphony in the sacred service because worshippers were not able to understand the texts. There were simply too many notes and so melismatic, with long phrases sung on single syllables, the words weren't readily heard. In fact, many composers wrote the music first, only to squeeze the words in wherever they might happen to fit. The Agnus Dei from the Missa Tecum Principium by Robert Fayrfax (1464-1521) provided a good example of this early luxuriant style. The seemingly endless vowels, decorated with all manner of notes and rhythms, made final consonants a big surprise. I honestly had forgotten what the word might be because the sound of the voices was so beautiful. The one movement was enough to show the audience what bothered the religious community about polyphony.
The divinely inspired Josquin des Prez (1440-1521) represented the Franco-Flemish end of the debate with two motets. The four-voice Ave Maria was then and still is among his best-known pieces, and places pretty high on the list of top ten hits of the Renaissance. For good reason. The brilliant weaving of the voices creates a tapestry of incredible loveliness. The motet Tu solus qui facis mirabilia presented a tamer perspective on Josquin. Largely homophonic, the work progresses as a series of responses from various parts of the choir. In the second part, a quotation from the chanson “D'ung aultre amer” introduces a new point of imitation, and another one of the Church's problems. Many at the time felt that it was inappropriate to use tunes off the street in sacred music. Yet, as this motet demonstrates, if it's a good tune, why not? From the soaring sopranos to the brilliant basses, the Tallis Scholars showed exactly why Josquin's reputation has survived unblemished for centuries.
In England, the influence of conservative Protestantism led to a new asceticism in music. Composers who had been used to writing in the flowery style heard in the work of Fayrfax suddenly had to scale way back and simplify. With Mary's accession to the throne in 1553, however, florid settings of the Latin rite were revived by Thomas Tallis (for whom the Tallis Scholars are named) and his colleague John Sheppard (1515-59). Too often ignored, Sheppard here made a welcome appearance with a setting of the Vespers chant ”In manus tuas” (Into your hands). Alternating between chant and lovely, dark polyphony for the three lower voices, Sheppard's setting showed English Popish glory at its best. By the time William Byrd (1543-1623) made it to the scene, English music had undergone a few more contortions with the religious struggles experienced under Elizabeth. Byrd represents a truly revolutionary figure, one who successfully assimilated the flowers of early English polyphony with the simplification desired by Protestant forces into a style wholly new and wholly his own. The Tallis Scholars performed a motet of Byrd, Tribulationes civitatum, in a conservative style that perhaps belies Byrd's revolutionary position. Though the voices were perfectly in time and tuning (as always), I somehow got the feeling that someone in the group doesn't really like Byrd. It shouldn't have been that soporific. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-94) is often credited with having saved polyphony from the axe of the Counter Reformation by demonstrating that you could write beautiful, elaborate music that still has an intelligible text. The Missa Papae Marcelli, dedicated to Pope Marcellus, was the piece Palestrina wrote to prove his point. The solid, steady rhythms and regular progressions make the text sparkling clear, especially as performed by the Tallis Scholars. Director Phillips pointed out at the end of the concert that this was actually the first work the group ever performed in the States, in a concert at Stanford back in 1988. He led the group through a brilliantly conservative performance, one that confirmed my suspicion that, if all one knows of the Renaissance is Palestrina, one does not know the Renaissance at all. Which brings me to my biggest beef about this concert. How much perfection can one endure? Peter Phillips, who founded the Scholars in 1973, is an exacting taskmaster who has established a solid international reputation for his group of fabulously trained singers. Their intonation is impeccable, their performances are without technical flaw, and their voices are lovely. But I felt like I was listening to a recording. Perhaps the lack of vital energy in the concert was a by-product of traveling long distances. Perhaps it is the result of audiences who expect CD-quality performance. Whatever the cause, I came away feeling a little disappointed that I was not transported from my seat by the power of polyphony. Through the program we had journeyed across the entire Renaissance, but somehow it all looked a bit the same. (Rebekah Ahrendt holds the Artist's Diploma in viola da gamba and historical performance practice from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague (NL). Currently, she is a graduate student in historical musicology at the University of California, Berkeley.) ©2004 Rebekah Ahrendt, all rights reserved |
