EMS 19 & 26 January

[doversoul1]

19 January
Lucie Skeaping presents a concert of music by Bach, Rameau and Leclair given by the European Union Baroque Orchestra and director Lars Ulrik Mortensen at MediaCityUK in Salford.
JS Bach: Suite No 2 in B minor, BWV.1067 (flute soloist Anne Freitag)
Leclair: Concerto for Flute in C major, Op.7 No.3 (flute soloist Anne Freitag)
Rameau: Suite from Acanthe et Céphise

[french frank]

The EMS is my 'Pick of the Week' two weeks running on the FoR3 homepage Next week looks to be a good one - but not a lot by way of detail yet ...

[CallMePaul]

Pérotin has always been a favourite of mine - I even have a 1970's recording od David Munrow's Early Music Consort in [I]Viderunt Omnes[I] and I believe that, of older generations, Nadia Boulanger conducted Pérotin, and Peter Pears' singing of this motet was an influence on Britten's writing of the part of Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw. I don't know if any pre-Munrow recordings of Pérotin exist.
I fear, though, that an opportunity will have been missed - I suspect that there will simply be a CD recital/ concert and very little discussion of the composer's influence or of his life and times. R3 used to do this sort of thing very well but that seems to have been lost. Composition students, though, may not feel enthusiastic about Pérotin - after all, he was he first known composer to write vocal music in 4 parts!

[french frank]

Hello, CallMePaul - welcome :-)

[I've amended the thread title to include the forthcoming Perotin programme (I've omitted the acute accent in line with HIPP custom!)]. Who knows what we can expect - the whole era would merit a series on its own.

These are all the details to date:

Lucie Skeaping presents recordings of music by the 13th-century European composer Perotin, including performances by the Hilliard Ensemble, The Orlando Consort and Ensemble Organum. Probably French in origin, Perotin's music embodies the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style.

[doversoul1]

Lucie Skeaping presents recordings of music by the 13th-century European composer Perotin

This would have been more like ‘Lucie Skeaping looks at music and life of the 13th-century composer Perotin and plays recordings by…

I hope I am only nit picking and the different wording does not mean different content but I don’t think Lucie or Catherine Bott would have used an expression like European Composer .

All the same, I am very much looking forward to it. But I do wish it were at 1.00 pm. 2.00 on Sunday afternoon is just not a good time to sit and listen to the radio for me.

[Honoured Guest]

Gardeners' Question Time has flourished for decades at 2.00 on Sunday afternoon. I suppose you can't please all the people all the time.

This does highlight how silly it is for every series to have a fixed time year-round because repeated editions are broadcast on the same day and time as the original broadcast and so they are missed for the same reasons by the same people.

[french frank]

I don’t think Lucie or Catherine Bott would have used an expression like European Composer .

Wikipedia does. The article borrows from Grove (which does not describe him as 'European' ). Hedging bets, I think.

[doversoul1]

Perotin: Today

Lucie Skeaping presents recordings of music by the 13th-century European composer Perotin, including performances by the Hilliard Ensemble, The Orlando Consort and Ensemble Organum. Probably French in origin, Perotin's music embodies the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style.

Never mind the composer’s nationality. This will be about (I hope) REAL early music.

[Serial_Apologist]

I am enjoying what for me is a new experience greatly. Not Garbarek's acid-toned soprano sax swamping the Hilliards and turning Perotin into folk-jazz; but I am assuming some of these modern-day versions to be more... authentic? I can see why Maxwell Davies and Birtwistle fell inspirationally in love with this period of music rather than the 18th and 19th centuries.

[doversoul1]

Very glad to hear that it isn’t just me who feels that the saxophone is irrelevant to the Hilliard’s performance. I don’t understand why they are so keen on the corroboration. The very first disc was quite impressive sound-wise but the rest is, to me, more of the same thing.

As for the question about performance being authentic, I’ll leave it to the experts but authenticity in vocal music seems to be something different from that of instrumental music. There is no hard evidence on which to (re)build the performance apart from the sex and the number of singers. Maybe some descriptions of how it sounded but that’s usually entirely subjective.

I was surprised that the Early Music Consort of London did not sound at all old. An interesting contrast to Raymond Leppard’s Poppea. Maybe this is something to do with the type of music.

[Serial_Apologist]

Very glad to hear that it isn’t just me who feels that the saxophone is irrelevant to the Hilliard’s performance. I don’t understand why they are so keen on the corroboration. The very first disc was quite impressive sound-wise but the rest is, to me, more of the same thing.

As for the question about performance being authentic, I’ll leave it to the experts but authenticity in vocal music seems to be something different from that of instrumental music. There is no hard evidence on which to (re)build the performance apart from the sex and the number of singers. Maybe some descriptions of how it sounded but that’s usually entirely subjective.

I was surprised that the Early Music Consort of London did not sound at all old. An interesting contrast to Raymond Leppard’s Poppea. Maybe this is something to do with the type of music.

Yes one knows to a greater extent from the workings of Mediaeval instruments how they would have sounded. I appreciated Ms Skeaping's informative and (I thought) non-condescending guidance through musical procedure - I would like more of this on other programmes, such as COTW - and her reference to modern Minimalism which, for me at any rate, so often fails dismally to simulate what it sometimes purports to retrieve from past aesthetics.

[Frances_iom]

I didn't want to enter a negative comment (after all EMS may just hold out re 'popularisation' tho I expect to be proved wrong) but I see I'm not alone in disliking that bl**dy saxophonist

[doversoul1]

I think EMS occasionally includes a ‘popular’ performance in a way of saying or as if to say ‘See, this work/composer can sound like this [].’

You could say that this is one way of appreciating the music, and it is usually very subtly done (except for that **** film music week).

[Frances_iom]

...and it is usually very subtly done ...

Ahh - like that Kathren Jenkins spot in COTW some time ago - an example of complete misinterpretation

[Old Grumpy]

I didn't want to enter a negative comment (after all EMS may just hold out re 'popularisation' tho I expect to be proved wrong) but I see I'm not alone in disliking that bl**dy saxophonist

Nothing wrong with Jan Garbarek - perhaps not on tEMS though. On the other hand, I have had the pleasure of seeing the Hilliard Ensemble with Jan Garbarek live in Durham Cathedral, now that was a concert to remember*!

*

OG