Byrd and Tallis - Stile Antico

[ardcarp]

See DracoM's thread Music for Christmas under The Choir heading.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?7110-Music-for-Christmas-Part-1-Thursday-20-December-2012

R3 Live in Concert, Wigmore Hall, Thursday 20th at 7.30pm

[Nick Armstrong]

See DracoM's post Christmas Music under The Choir heading.
R3 Live in Concert, Wigmore Hall, Thursday 20th at 7.30pm

Oh blimey, I'm glad you tipped us another wink about that!

[ardcarp]

That's OK Calibs. Can't have enough winks tipped at this time of year. And as it's nearly Christmas, I'll let you off the holly. Must think about getting a tree in the next few days....

[doversoul1]

I’ll join here with this

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?6877-Early-Music-in-the-Evening-Concert&p=236404#post236404

and this

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?7089-Coming-Up-Live-This-Week

#3

And just in case…
Friday 7.30pm
J S Bach: Jauchzet, frohlocket (BWV 248, no 1)
J S Bach: Brandenburg Concerto 4 in G (BWV 1014)
J S Bach: Und es waren (BWV 248, no 2)
J S Bach: Herrscher des Himmels (BWV 248, no 3)
Sarah Fox soprano
David Allsopp counter-tenor
Ben Johnson tenor
Stephan Loges bass
BBC Singers
St James's Baroque
David Hill conductor

Plus
Lunchtime Concert: Friday
Gesualdo: Tenebrae Responsory (Omnes amici mei)
Hilliard Ensemble

(I hope ff is just busy with the usual seasonal matters)

[Miles Coverdale]

Although Tallis's Gaude gloriosa was very nicely sung, I can't help feeling that in this sort of repertoire, their conductorless approach doesn't necessarily benefit them, for all too often, it seems to me, it results in tempos that are a bit too slow and a performance that is slightly directionless and lacking in shape. On their Puer natus est CD, Tallis's Videte miraculum and Sheppard's Verbum caro are positively funereal in tempo and, although the sound is very beautiful, the performances are frankly a bit boring. When they do go out of their way to give a piece some shape (e.g. in their recording of Byrd's Infelix ego), the result sounds a bit unspontaneous and contrived.

According to their web site, they have recently completed a recording of music from the original 1920s TCM seres, and I imagine the Tallis will be on that. If so, to judge from this performance, they will have perpetuated a wrong note in the triplex part which appeared in the TCM edition and which has been on every recording of this work I've heard. It doesn't actually sound wrong, but it's not what the source says and I think the source must be right.

I'll be interested to hear their Wigmore Hall concert, which has some great repertoire.

[ardcarp]

Although Tallis's Gaude gloriosa was very nicely sung,

When? Where? Sorry, MC, I'm confused.

[Miles Coverdale]

When? Where? Sorry, MC, I'm confused.

Here

The Stile Antico segment starts around the 33 minute mark.

[ardcarp]

Thanks MC. I'm listening to Gaude G right now. Indeed they made a beautiful sound in that great basilica...and what a lovely effortless soprano line. Hope they manage the same in the drier acpustic of The Wigmore. When Stile was first set up, their decision was to be conductorless, so we have to accept that this is the way we are. I do not have their Puer Natus Est CD, but I take your point about tempi which are unrelieved. They do sing with naturally arching phrases though, which counts for a lot. There is, I detect, a trend in many choral groups to sing Rnaissance musiic at the same dynamic level with little attempt at light and shade or variation inn tempo. This may be as a result of some scholarly accepted norm. IMV The Sixteen, which are not a specialist Early Music choir, do bring a different approach so that even Palestrina, which can sound bland and anodyne,has some passion under HC's inspired direction. Which rather makes your point.

[Nick Armstrong]

their conductorless approach doesn't necessarily benefit them, for all too often, it seems to me, it results in tempos that are a bit too slow and a performance that is slightly directionless and lacking in shape.

I have the Tallis disc, and think their approach actually suits the music - or at least is a legitimate way of performing it which I enjoy.

However I just heard a track from their Fauré 'Requiem' - adjectives like 'funereal', 'lifeless' might seem appropriate qualities for a requiem, but it doesn't work.

EDIT: I am of course talking absolute nonsense. The Fauré recording is by Tenebrae, not Stile Antico!!

[Miles Coverdale]

Regarding tempo, if there is a scholarly accepted norm, it is that the tempo in duple time should be a little faster than in triple time. This can be deduced from the fact that the music is often rather less 'active', with fewer short notes, in duple time. My point is not so much that the tempo is unrelieved (though it can be), more that it is a bit too slow.

I do wonder how easy it is, without a conductor, to be spontaneous in performance. Or, does everything have to agreed before beforehand? If one singer tries to move something on, it could get a bit tricky if the others don't follow.

Compare and contrast the recording of Gaude gloriosa by the Taverner Choir. Their two discs of Tallis are still some of the best available. Their recordings of, for example, Suscipe quaeso and the first set of Lamentations have never been bettered, in my opinion. Still available at only £8 or so for the pair.

[rauschwerk]

I do wonder how easy it is, without a conductor, to be spontaneous in performance. Or, does everything has to agreed before beforehand? If one singer tries to move something on, it could get a bit tricky if the others don't follow.

I have long experience of this kind of thing, having founded an a cappella consort 24 years ago. We sing a great variety of music including Renaissance polyphony. Quite simply, it takes longer without a conductor to settle an interpretation and to be familiar enough with the music to really listen to the other singers. As we have never expected to earn any personal remuneration from our singing (the professional musicians among us play or teach for a living and sing for a hobby) that doesn't matter. We have found great inspiration in one-day workshops with Philip Thorby (Senior Fellow at TCL) who is full of ideas on performing Renaissance music, and our interpretations of pieces we have studied with him (and, we hope, other music) have become much less bland as a result. That, in my view, is just what a conductorless group needs from time to time.

[ardcarp]

Compare and contrast the recording of Gaude gloriosa by the Taverner Choir. Their two discs of Tallis are still some of the best available. Their recordings of, for example, Suscipe quaeso and the first set of Lamentations have never been bettered, in my opinion.

[DracoM]

A miracle of adaptation. That music is more associated with resonant spaces - not something you would readily think of as being WiggyH. Yet, once I'd got ever expecting reverb, I began to listen to the music as a recusant catholic might have heard it in a more confined, relatively domestic space, or as if one were listening to religious chamber music / madrigals in the sense that they were intended for intimate services and offered intricate structures and inter-relations.

And how beautifully Stile Antico floated, listened to one another, made space for each other, did not shout and swagger, almost zero vibrato. It was a very fine evening of lovely music making. Genuinely moving. Many thanks.

[ardcarp]

I too felt they did what they do (finely tuned, blended, sensitive ensemble) surprisingly well at the WH. But I have to say, Draco, I did have to ask myself WHY the Wigmore Hall? OK, I know why...it's a prestigious venue and they were asked to give a recital there and who wouldn't? I take on board all you say about Byrd's stuff (possibly) being sung in the butler's pantry of an Essex country seat, but Byrd surely composed all we heard tonight with glorious locations of the Roman Rite in his head. I admire Stile and all they have achieved very much, but I did find it got a tad wearing to the ear after a while. Acoustics apart, concert performance was not the prime function of any of tonight's pieces. The way they sang them would have been wondrous in a liturgical (or simulated liturgical) setting. Placed end to end like that, and sung in Stile's undemonstrative way, it just got a bit samey. Had I been there rather than at the receiving end of a broadcast it is possible that I may have been more drawn into it.

[DracoM]

Put your finger on a really important point for all of us in a radio / TV / CD et al age - ALL those pieces were intended for a liturgical context, and WH on a foul rainy night isn't one of those.

The danger is that it becomes sumptuous wallpaper. I did not have the scores in front of me and I wish I had, and I feel that having them might have made a difference. Nevertheless, after concerts given by other ensembles recently, this was ascetic, unshowy, fine tuning and voices / ensemble wedded to eschewing vibrato - hence the ensemble became more important than any individual voice.