Last night I attended a performance by the Tallis Scholars at Ithaca College. I’ve been a fan of theirs for some years. I became interested in Renaissance sacred music sometime in the early ’90s and if I remember correctly, the first CD I bought was the TS recording of two of Josquin’s L’Homme Arme masses.
I’ve since collected a number of their discs and once attended a concert that they gave at Duke Chapel. That must have been around 1995. Duke Chapel is of course a beautiful setting for a concert, but is an acoustic disaster, especially if you’re sitting way back in the nave. So I left that concert disappointed that I still had not really heard the Tallis Scholars live.
Last night’s concert was far more more enjoyable. The first half of the program included works of four Portuguese composers, who I confess I’d never heard of before. These were Manuel Mendes (c.1547-1605), Manuel Cardoso (1566-1650), Duarte Lobo (c.1565-1646), and Diogo Diaz Melgás (1638-1700). All of these works were interesting, but a few stood out to me for textual as well as musical reasons.
The Scholars performed a couple verses of lamentations by Cardoso, a Carmelite monk. These have a strange textual feature in that composers would set the Hebrew letters by which the sections are designated to music. This particular work featured elaborate melismas on “Vau” and “Zain.” Strangely, this compositional practice made me think of Stephen Jay Gould’s “Spandrels of San Marco” paper in which he asserts that much evolution progresses by the “exaptation” of random structures for useful purposes. He compares this to the spandrels in the Cathedral of San Marco, vaguely triangular areas that are simply a by-product of setting a round dome on a square base, but which are used to great artistic effect by painters. Similarly, these uninteresting Hebrew letters give composers a chance to construct exquisite counterpoint, freed of the need to follow an actual text.
Melgás was an exceptionally conservative composer for his time and the two four voice motets that the Scholars performed sounded notably less modern than the older works which preceded them on the program. I was struck by one of these because of the text:
Domine, hominem non haveo ut, cum turbata fuerit aqua, mittat me in piscinam: Dum venio enim ego, alius ante me descendit.
Lord, I have no-one to lead me into the pool when the waters are disturbed: for while I make my way, another climbs down before me.
This passage is from a story in the Gospel of St. John in which Jesus encounters a man who has been sick for 38 years and who has been trying to make his way into a sacred pool called Bethzatha in Jerusalem. Jesus tells him simply “Stand up, take your mat and walk” and the man is healed. The effect of Melgás’s setting of this mundane, if not whiny, text was startling and almost psalm-like, making of the beggar’s complaint a new testament De Profundis.
Immediately following this Melgás motet, the Scholars performed a Magnificat secundi toni by Cardoso. This piece is from Cardoso’s first publication in 1613. Like the Melgás, it is not an adventurous piece, but is beautiful nonetheless. Each verse began with plainchant statements by the tenors, out of which the polyphony would blossom as the verse proceeded. The Magnificat is a favorite text of mine, and apparently of the musically inclined in general, since it is so often set. My CD collection includes Magnificat settings by Orlando Gibbons, Françoise Couperin, Claudio Monteverdi, and of course J.S. Bach. The text is the song of praise sung by the Virgin Mary upon learning that she is carrying the child of God.
Magnificat anima mea Dominum
Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo.
Quia respexit humilitatem ancillæ suæ: ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes.
Quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est, et sanctum nomen eius.
Et misericordia eius a progenie in progenies timentibus eum.
Fecit potentiam in brachio suo, dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.
Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles.
Esurientes implevit bonis et divites dimisit inanes,
Suscepit Israel puerum suum recordatus misericordiæ suæ,
Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros, Abraham et semini eius in sæcula.
My soul doth magnify the Lord.
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is his name.
And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him.
He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy:
As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.
It is a text with great emotional potential as well as many opportunities for word painting. Composers seem to especially like to use diverging or chaotic lines on “dispersit superbos” and to use plurality of notes and sounds on “omnes generations.” And once you’ve heard Bach’s contagious fugue on “sicut locutus est” you’ll never be able to not hear it when you encounter those words in other music.
After the intermission, the program moved from Portugal to Spain and from the scattered offerings of relatively minor composers to a masterpiece by one of the giants of the Renaissance. The Requiem a6 of Tomás Luis de Victoria is a powerful work, with an emotional impact that is not often encountered in Renaissance sacred music. This requiem was published in 1605 (the year of the English gunpowder plot) and was Victoria’s final publication. He wrote it for the 1603 funeral of his patroness the Dowager Empress Maria of Austria, sister of Phillip II of Spain. The highlight of the mass is a liturgical oddity, a passage from Job inserted after the Communio.
Versa est in luctum cithara mea et organum meum in vocem flentium. Parce mihi Domine, nihil enim sunt dies mei.
My harp is tuned to mourning and my organ into the voice of those that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are nothing.
Victoria’s setting of this short passage soars. It exemplifies perfectly the Spanish Renaissance in its combination of passionate longing and sublime poise. The Tallis Scholars brought the passage alive with special credit going to their sopranos. Overall, the concert was excellent and was a valuable opportunity to hear music that is not often performed.