Choral music and Radio 3's priorities

[jean]

Do they?

I think so. Don't you?

[Gabriel Jackson]

I was very shocked when I first sang Josquin's setting of the Easter sequence Victimae paschali, which includes the words Credendum est magis soli Mariae veraci/Quam Judaeorum turbae fallaci which were rightly expunged from the Misal as early as 1570 and which I had never heard.

How to express properly such a text?

It's like the anti-semitic lines in "Tomorrow shall be my dancing day" as set by Stravinsky. Richard Taruskin suggests we have to "close our ears" at that point.

[Keraulophone]

'Rules is Rules'

Flouting the Coleslaw...

I doubt that Coleslaw is served in Rules's.

[subcontrabass]

I was very shocked when I first sang Josquin's setting of the Easter sequence Victimae paschali, which includes the words Credendum est magis soli Mariae veraci/Quam Judaeorum turbae fallaci which were rightly expunged from the Misal as early as 1570 and which I had never heard.

How to express properly such a text?

It has to be understood in context. In this case there is a clear reference to the Gospel of St Matthew, Chapter 28, verses 8-15. The "Jews" referred to both in Matthew and in Victimae paschali laudes are a small minority of the Jews of the First Century. This is simply a reference to something historical and should not be distorted into an anti-Semitic interpretation.

[rauschwerk]

To pick up various points made earlier: there is a major difference in the decision making process between a string quartet and a group of 12. Four people can reach consensus - 12 hardly ever can, and rehearsals can get bogged down in discussion unless someone decides to be directive (in other words, to behave like a conductor without the arm-waving). I did not find Stile Antico's 2009 album Song of Songs very inspiring, critically acclaimed though it was. Their more recent efforts have been a different matter. I read somewhere that they had been working with David Wulstan and other luminaries which might well have helped focus their interpretations.

[jean]

This is simply a reference to something historical and should not be distorted into an anti-Semitic interpretation.

It's antisemitic whichever way you cut it. They knew that even in 1570.

.

[jean]

I read somewhere that they had been working with David Wulstan and other luminaries which might well have helped focus their interpretations.

Any such gtroup will look for input from scholars which will help focus their interpretations; people like Bruno Turner and Hugh Keyte often took this role in the past - both of these had an enormous amount of musicological knowledge without necessarily being the inspirational individual whose presence on the platform in front of a group at a performance has been argued here as an absolute necessity, without which we may as well all pack up and go home.

Stile Antico are verycommitted to their way of working. Not long ago I attended a workshop run by two of them, and I recommend that to anyone interested in a greater insight into that.

[ardcarp]

I was very shocked when I first sang Josquin's setting of the Easter sequence Victimae paschali, which includes the words Credendum est magis soli Mariae veraci/Quam Judaeorum turbae fallaci which were rightly expunged from the Misal as early as 1570 and which I had never heard.

How to express properly such a text?

....that's a tricky one! Maybe the whole choir should go la - la - la at that point. Is there a parallel with wishing to remove the stature of Cecil Rhodes, i.e. retrospective mores and all that?

Replying to Gabriel's earlier point, here's a quote from Stravinsky, c.1930

For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc

I don't believe that of course, and Igor was known for saying many contradictory things about his and other peoples' music!

[jean]

....that's a tricky one! Maybe the whole choir should go la - la - la at that point. Is there a parallel with wishing to remove the stature of Cecil Rhodes, i.e. retrospective mores and all that?

I don't think so, because you'd have to commit yourself to some sort of interpretation to the syllables you enunciated; you can't explicitly distance yourself in the way you can as you walk past Rhodes's statue.

What's the view on polytextual motets?

[Oldcrofter]

If singing "la-la-la" were the way round it, Ardcarp, there'd be an awful lot of la-ing when it comes to phrases such as "Credo in unum Deum..." from probably more than half of any choral society. I've no idea how many are believers, agnostics, non-believers etc. there are in the choirs I sing with - and I've no intention of bothering to find out.

But they all sing "Credo in unum Deum" and I doubt if they worry much about it, let alone what was expunged from the Missal in 1570, the singing of which shocked Jean to the core.

[ardcarp]

Keeping on the lighter side, I found this in reply to Jean's question about polyt...polypa...polywhatever it is:

https://prezi.com/o6ooljbgc_di/the-polytextual-motet/

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't believe that of course, and Igor was known for saying many contradictory things about his and other peoples' music!

Hmm. I suppose it depends on what is meant by "express" - and his previous and subsequent comments on the matter make it clear that Stravinsky believed that Music could express (only) itself. (And that was something that Stravinsky never "contradicted" in his entire life.) Music can evoke "feelings, attitudes of mind, psychological moods, phenomena of nature", but as has been wisely suggested earlier here, that is more in the receptive psychology (and cultural background) of the individual listener, rather than the inherent properties of the Music itself.

Knowing what the words mean can certainly enliven a performance, but it can also lead to "hammy" over-exaggeration and "interpretation": it depends on the Musicality of the performers, their relationship with the conductor - and the attitude of the listener.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Keeping on the lighter side, I found this in reply to Jean's question about polyt...polypa...polywhatever it is:

"Polytextual" isn't a particularly complicated word, is it? Self-explanatory: a motet which sets several texts simulataneously.

[Richard Barrett]

a quote from Stravinsky

... and as David Hockney said some decades later: "never believe what artists say, only what they do."

Regarding antisemitism in the texts of earlier music there are of course plenty of examples in Bach, from the St John Passion to the cantatas (also, in cantatas nos. 18 and 126, referring to the "murderous rage of the Pope and the Turk"). As Jean says, there's no papering over such things - antisemitism was the default setting for gentiles in those times. I would think it's better to confront the contradiction (one hopes) between then and now, both as performers and audiences, and try to understand it, than to ignore it or to change the words or perform them in some anachronistic way.

[BBMmk2]

"Polytextual" isn't a particularly complicated word, is it? Self-explanatory: a motet which sets several texts simulataneously.

Indeed, Ferney. and only 3 voices, usually!