Marian Consort: EMS 8 November

[doversoul1]

The Early Music Show comes to Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival for the first time. Acclaimed vocal group, the Marian Consort, under its director Rory McCleery, performs an intriguing concert of early music from composers whose creative imagination and religious principles prompted them to disregard the established musical rules of their day.

In the sixteenth century, Carlo Gesualdo's extraordinary vocal music pushed ideas of harmony to new limits in his pursuit of emotional truth; William Byrd's settings of religious texts are sometimes covert expressions of his Catholic faith at a time when such beliefs were forbidden and dangerous. The Marian Consort's programme is introduced by Lucie Skeaping.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nrg2n

Not sure what Byrd has got to do with free thinking but any excuse for Gesualdo and Byrd on R3 is welcome.

[Old Grumpy]

Not sure what Byrd has got to do with free thinking but any excuse for Gesualdo and Byrd on R3 is welcome.

Did you find out?

The link is somewhat tenuous, I'll admit, but it was good all the same - I was there.

OG

[ardcarp]

What were they like in the flesh, OG? They sounded pretty darn good to me; good individual voices but able to blend, as it came over on R3. All underpinned by a very fine bass. (Was it Nick Ashby? He sings in other groups, surely.) I'm glad they chucked in Come Woeful Orpheus amongst all the sacred stuff, 'cos that really is Byrd being experimental, e.g. "Some strange Cromatique Notes doe you devise"...and he does.

[Old Grumpy]

pretty darn good

Sums it up well

As for the names - looking at his picture yes, I think it was Nick Ashby. They were name checked during the performance, but I haven't listened to the broadcast yet.

OG

[oddoneout]

Missed the introduction to the first item and assumed it was Gesualdo, so was intrigued to find it was someone called Jacob Handl(other names available apparently). I didn't hear the rest of the programme, but mindful of a debate elsewhere on the forum was the 'r' word mentioned and if so what pronunciation did they favour?

[doversoul1]

Whatever the free-thinking bit was, I, too thought the ensemble was very good indeed. I hope Radio 3 will remember them when it programmes the music in this repertoire in the future.

[ardcarp]

what pronunciation did they favour?

I heard an 's' sound (not 'ch') for a caeli at some point. Maybe that was in the English stuff, and maybe they used Italianate for Gesualdo, de Rore and the like. Have to LA to be sure.

[jean]

I noticed English pronunciation in the Byrd.

It was suggested that the 'Free Thinking' connexion was all about breaking the rules...which Gesualdo certainly did, Byrd less so. They were indeed very good.

[oddoneout]

The 'r' word I meant was recusant, which I thought might crop up and the pronunciation of which has been the subject of debate elsewhere.
The choir I sing with sometimes gets quite agitated about what 'style' of latin to adopt - are we eggselling or exchelling(or even eggshelling), will it be chaley or seeley - especially if we have a mixed programme. Musicologists take on classicists, and the rest of us just try and remember what the final decision is!

[jean]

You can tell the classicists they have no business having an opinion on any of it!

[ardcarp]

the rest of us just try and remember what the final decision is!

That rings very true! But, yes, all singing from the same hymn sheet [or whatever the misquote is] is all that really matters. If you have a scratch choir and only a half-hour rehearsal, just to say 'Pope's Latin' saves a lot of time.

[subcontrabass]

just to say 'Pope's Latin' saves a lot of time.

Which Pope? And which version by that Pope? Benedict XVI sometimes reverted to German pronunciation (e.g. "ektselsis" for "excelsis") and sometimes used Italian pronunciation.

[oddoneout]

just to say 'Pope's Latin'

Now that would cause debate, but perhaps would unite the musicologists and classicists!. German latin is yet more variation as we discovered when doing a joint concert with the choir from our german twin town,singing a Schubert Mass. Time constraints meant that pronunciation had to give way to notes so the audience was treated to pick and mix latin.

[ardcarp]

Which Pope? And which version by that Pope? Benedict XVI sometimes reverted to German pronunciation (e.g. "ektselsis" for "excelsis") and sometimes used Italian pronunciation.

...and they say 'Tsaylee' for 'coeli'.


French Latin is even more weird, e.e Deus becomes Day-u, the 'u' being as in the French 'tu'.