Saturday, October 04, 2008

'Incessantly my poor heart laments'

This was the parody mass by by the 'Franco-Flemish' composer Pierre de la Rue (1452 - 1518) performed today in the freezing Franciscan church by the German a capella group 'Amarcord' from Leipzig. (A 'parody mass' is a mass that is based on material, at times by other composers. I ask myself then if Berio's piece using a movement from Mahler's second (?) symphony could be described as a parody piece?).

Not having checked this out properly, my heart sank a little when I saw only the music stands for singers. But there we are. I was also surprised that the movements of this mass were interspersed by pieces from the Moosburg Gradual (1360), but the reason for this soon became clear.

The mass consisted of highly complex and polyphonic, imitative and very melismatic music - I can see why my music course states that music became simpler towards the 16th century. In music of this period performance directions like dynamics or
rallentandos don't really exist, so the notes themselves just had to be
interesting.  Sometimes I felt that de la Rue had put in a change in harmony as an afterthought, when suddenly on the last note a harmony changed. 

The gradual pieces were unison plainchants and/or antiphons. Had just one programme half been composed of these, it would have been rather boring  (they will forever remind me of the description as 'moaning monks' by Wendy Craig in 'Butterflies' about 25 years ago). This way the total stylistic difference between the pieces made an varied afternoon's concert.  I was impressed that the group of 5 men managed to sing in unison, given that the total of their vocal compasses ranged very wide (though one was effectively a countertenor, who could also sing a normal tenor voice).   It was interesting that in the mass both the Gloria and the Credo started with a solo singer stating the main theme ('Gloria in excelsis', 'credo in unum deum'). It reminded me of something - maybe some English church singing, or a later mass by another composer?

The singers sang beautifully, though I felt that entries were at times a little ragged; also the diction could have been better - consonants were a bit thin at times making it difficult to understand the words; I believe the Sanctus starts with an 's' and the 'excelsis' ends with an 's'. I felt sorry for the singers who were not half as warmly dressed as I and must have been chilled to the bone. But it was a very interesting programme, and something else to add to my exam preparation. It was nice to see, too, that the church was pretty full (85%) for a Saturday afternoon, and not many people left during the interval.

NB - the concert was free - who paid for it?