Hall One, Kings Place
Robert Parsons – Ave Maria
Plainsong Vespers
Dunstable – Ave maris stella
Magnificat
secondi toni
Robert Hacomplaynt – Salve Regina
Tallis – Videte miraculum
Thomas Damett – Beata Dei genetrix
Plainsong Kyrie
Byttering – Nesciens mater
Roy Henry – Sanctus
Plainsong – Agnus Dei
Leonel Power – Ave Regina caelorum
Robert Fayrfax – Magnificat ‘Regale’
One of the best stories –
true, I think – about the late, greatly lamented impresario, Gérard Mortier, concerned
his handling of a philistine donor to the Salzburg Festival. Unimpressed at
Mortier’s opening up of the operatic repertoire, especially to the great
musical dramas of the twentieth century, the person in question gave a large
sum, on condition that it fund a production of an Italian opera. Mortier took
the money and staged Busoni’s Doktor
Faust. I similarly admire Stephen Cleobury’s chutzpah in his introduction
to an otherwise bizarre programme note (whose perpetrator I shall charitably shroud
in anonymity). ‘When I was asked to devise a programme on the “minimalist”
theme,’ Cleobury writes, ‘the idea of a plainsong based sequence immediately suggested
itself, since a single unadorned melodic line so obviously fits this theme.’
That, it would seem, is how music from the Eton Choir Book and the Old Hall
Manuscript, together with other early English music, came to be performed in a
concert series entitled ‘Minimalism Unwrapped’. Just as well, since a programme
of ‘holy minimalism’, or whatever it calls itself nowadays, would have had me
give Kings Place a very wide berth indeed. What we heard, in genuine
celebration of the quincentenary of the completion of the fabric of King’s
College Chapel, was an admirable performance of a complete Vespers and a
composite Mass, sandwiched between later Marian motets and two Magnificat settings from the Eton
Choirbook. If such music be the food of minimalism, play on; and what, one
might ask, would not qualify?
The concert opened with the Ave Maria by Robert Parsons, a staple of
Choral Evensong. Perhaps the choir took a little while to adjust to an acoustic
about as far removed from that of King’s Chapel as I can imagine; or perhaps it
was my ears. At any rate, the revelation of its voices, tenors first,
eventually trebles, offered a decent curtain-raiser to the main body of the
first half. The boys then left the stage until after the Marian Vespers
sequence. An edition of Sarum chant made by Jesse Billett (a sometime choral
scholar) was employed: particularly fitting, given that rite’s use in royal
foundations. The first antiphon and psalm (113) did not always offer lines as
precisely honed as this bright acoustic might have preferred, but ultimately, that
was of little import: throughout, there was a fine sense of chant that was an
everyday friend. This was, of course, a concert rather than a service, but more
than a remnant of the latter lingered – in a very positive sense.
Within the chant lay two
works by John Dunstable (or Dunstaple, as we are now supposed to call him): an Ave maris stella and Magnificat. What particularly impressed
me about both was the way in which performance of the music clearly proceeded
from plainsong. These were not performances intended to draw attention to
themselves, but modest in the best sense of the word, typical of Cleobury’s
best work. The Magnificat is the
somewhat more ornate work, though such things are relative rather than
absolute. Its contrast between solo voices (countertenor and tenor, the latter
in particular growing in confidence as the performance progressed) and full
choir offered variation for our ears in a recognisably modern sense,
irrespective of intention and original context.
The boys returned for the Magnificat by Robert Hacomplaynt,
Provost of King’s (1509-28), formerly of Eton, that other great foundation of
Henry VI. Again, there was an increase in floridity, but again, there was a
fine impression of the music arising from the plainsong we had heard, not least
in a flexibility which, far from being inimical to metrical sense, actually
contributed thereto. Marian sweetness and clemency were to be heard without a
hint of sentimentalisation. Perhaps I am being fanciful, but I even gleaned an
impression of intercession.
Tallis opened the second
half, with his Videte miraculum,
Marian according to more than one usage. Here we heard not a reversion but a
forward-looking alternative to the Reformation, indeed a work of the Counter
Reformation. How different things might have been? Or maybe not. Again, the
motet was sung with all the advantages that daily – well, frequent –
performances of such repertoire brings; again, the flow of a performance
sounding horizontally conceived, impressed in its ‘natural’ manner. Trebles
again left the stage, this time for the Mass sequence, ‘de Beata Maria Virgine’,
incorporating music from the Old Hall Manuscript. From a casual glance of the
programme, ‘Roy Henry’ might have seemed like a twenty-first-century interpolation: the
Henry in question was, of course, ‘roy’ as in king, most likely Henry V. Leonel
Power, a member of Henry’s Chapel, offered an Ave Regina caelorum, with other motets hailing, as it were, from
Thomas Danett and (Thomas?) Byttering. All received honest, unexaggerated
performances, which permitted that celebrated illusion of the music, or perhaps
we should say the music and words, speaking for itself or themselves.
The closing performance was
of Robert Fayrfax’s Magnificat, ‘Regale’.
Mary sang her song joyfully and without affectation. Fayrfax’s long lines were
relished, again in the best sense of an unassuming performance. The work – and I
see no reason why we should not speak of this as a ‘musical work’ – sounded effortlessly,
or seemingly effortlessly, as a whole. And if there was nothing on the level of
a King’s Chapel echo to be heard, this wonderful polyphony continued to sound
in my aural memory long after the concert had finished.
