Early Music America Fall 2012 - (Page 25)

ty and hope for salvation, and have long been overlooked. The fourvoice setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Thomas Crecquillon is recorded here for the first time, and thank goodness for that, because it is simply lovely. The dissonances in the opening bars are brought out with intensity, the density of the movements never overshadows the moving lines, and the speed works with the phrasing of the individual lines. Antoine Brumel’s Missa pro defunctis is one of the earliest surviving Requiems that we know of, and the first to include a polyphonic setting of the Dies Irae, but it often gets overshadowed by his 12-voice Missa Et ecce terrae motus and his Missa L ’homme Armé. Here, its homophonic simplicity is tastefully shaded by a constant sense of waxing and waning that highlights the somber nature of its text. Jacobus Clemens non Papa’s setting of Psalm 31, Tristitia obsedit me, is actually paraphrased from the last writings of martyred Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola, whose bonfires of the vanities and eventual death in 1498 made him a household name. Clemens rearranged passages from his texts to show a movement from despair in the first half to faithful hope in the second, musically expressed through imitation and the obsessive repetition of phrases. Absalon fili mi is attributed to Josquin des Prez, though the liner notes clarify that some doubt exists; the work may have been written by the slightly younger Pierre de la Rue. Regardless, it’s a stunning motet, and surprisingly uplifting for a dire text about the death of David’s son. The last work is an encore of sorts to the rest of the disc, a contemporary piece commissioned by the ensemble from composer Jackson Hill. A reworking of the famed rondeau of Guillaume de Machaut, the fantasy Ma fin est ma commencement sees Machaut’s original melodies fragmented, rearranged, and eventually brought back together in a harmonically sparse, bleakly beautiful way. This is a fabulous new composition and a perfect finish to the recording. I couldn’t help but be moved by the somber texts, the beautiful musicality, and the composers’ rejoicing in hope for life after death. This recording is a must for fans of Renaissance or contemporary polyphony. —Karen Cook Freud und Lust: Buxtehude and Bach Ryland Angel, countertenor The Holy Trinity Bach Players: Peter Kupfer, violin; Amelia Roosevelt, violin; Susan Iadone, viola; Carlene Stober, gamba; Patricia Ann Neely, violone; Daniel Swenberg, theorbo; Rick Erickson, organist and director Deux-Elles DXL 1147 www.deux-elles.co.uk Among those who need little introduction to our readers are Dieterich Buxtehude, Johann Sebastian Bach, and the latter’s earlier relative, Johann Christoph Bach, the composers featured on this recent disc from Deux-Elles. Here we have a selection of arias and songs sung by British countertenor Ryland Angel interspersed with two instrumental sonatas by Buxtehude. The sampling offers a penetrating range of emotions, from Buxtehude’s joyful “Jesu meine Freud und Lust” (BuxWV 59) to the plaintive setting of the hymn text “Komm, susser Tod” (BWV 478, ascribed to J.S. Bach), and from the monodic but passionate lament by Johann Christoph Bach, “Ach, daß ich Wassers gnug hätte,” to Buxtehude’s Italianate “Jubilate Domino” (BuxWV 64), a work that may have been written for a visiting Italian castrato or touring viol virtuosi. The five works by Buxtehude require some sophisticated string accompaniment and are performed admirably by the seven-member Holy Trinity Bach Players, a group in residence at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in New York City. Buxtehude often used two strings plus continuo to support singers, but in “Jubilate Domino” he uses a virtuosic bass viol and continuo, and in “Jesu meine Freund und Lust,” a larger consort of two violins, violetta, violone, and continuo are required. In the liner notes written by Kerala Snyder (a leading expert on Buxtehude and his contemporaries), it is suggested that the violetta was a term for a midrange string instrument or possibly a small viol. This work is only found in the Lubeck Tablature and was O poore distracted world! ENGLISH MELANCHOLY Peerson Coperario Purcell Ramsey Lupo Locke Croft Blow Milton Weelkes ACD2 2630 LES VOIX BAROQUES Alexander Weimann For no pleasure “but there is is annexed tohere sorrow it.” Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621 AVAILABLE IN HD AT ATMACLASSIQUE.COM Early Music America Fall 2012 25 http://www.deux-elles.co.uk http://www.ATMACLASSIQUE.COM http://Arkivmusic.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Early Music America Fall 2012

Editor’s Note
EMA Competition
Sound Bytes
Musings: Listening Forward
Profile: A Classical Playlist on Your Cable Television
Recording Reviews
Reconstructing Spanish Songs from the Time of Cervantes
Janet See: Traversist on Two Continents
Musical Mosaic Explores “Perspectives of Interspersing Peoples”
Book Reviews
Ad Index
In Conclusion: Conducting Early Music

Early Music America Fall 2012