Choral Evensong Ensemble Pro Victoria 20/10/2021 [L]

[DracoM]

Choral Vespers [L]

Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace
Ensemble Pro Victoria

500th anniversary of the death of Robert Fayrfax


Order of Service:


Psalms 110, 111, 112, 113, 114 (plainsong)
Hymn: Sanctorum meritis (plainsong)
Canticle: Magnificat Regale (Fayrfax)
Antiphon: Salve regina (Fayrfax)

Richard Gowers (Organist)
Toby Ward (Director)

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 4 p.m.

[jonfan]

This is wonderful; despite not understanding the Latin one can appreciate the sense of worship involved. The engineering is superb with a rich bloom around the voices.

[AuntDaisy]

This is wonderful; despite not understanding the Latin one can appreciate the sense of worship involved. The engineering is superb with a rich bloom around the voices.

Thanks DracoM for the reminder - catching up now.
Might dig out The Cardinall's Musick Fayrfax for later.

[ardcarp]

I was expecting a somewhat less enthusiastic response to a lack of trad CE! Personally I like the occasional excursion into Vespers with tons of plainsong. We did get plenty of polyphony too...and somehow it seems all the more glorious after the austerity of plainsong.

Whilst listening to Pro Victoria, I was simultaneously reading an article about them in the latest edition of Choir & Organ. They are new kids on the block of professional choirs, and determined to keep their membership young it seems. Those who may be hesitating to comment on their voice producton might be interested in this quote from that article about their vocal style:

"...these voices are fully and healthily released [sic], technically proficient, and with no uncomfortable vocal compromises. Their vibrato centred and fine-tuned may surprise. Too many, particularly amateur, groups are still producing 'white noise'...."

(Aside: I wonder if author Rebecca Tavener considers Stile Antico or Voces 8 to be amateur?)

However, whatever thoughts may be swirling around, the group, led by Toby Ward, certainly does its homework on repertoire and liaises with Prof Magnus Williamson, something of an expert on Renaissance liturgical music.

I did notice a few tuning problems here and there.

[Subtuum]

Whilst listening to Pro Victoria, I was simultaneously reading an article about them in the latest edition of Choir & Organ. They are new kids on the block of professional choirs, and determined to keep their membership young it seems. Those who may be hesitating to comment on their voice producton might be interested in this quote from that article about their vocal style:

"...these voices are fully and healthily released [sic], technically proficient, and with no uncomfortable vocal compromises. Their vibrato centred and fine-tuned may surprise. Too many, particularly amateur, groups are still producing 'white noise'...."

(Aside: I wonder if author Rebecca Tavener considers Stile Antico or Voces 8 to be amateur?)

What this is highlighting is the move away from thin, unconnected singing that sopranos are often asked to produce. This sound for adult choirs is a manufactured creation from revival days when this type of music was beginning to be rediscovered, dusted-off and performed. It raises a question that is very much part of similar discussions we are having these days: why do people want adult women to sound like prepubescent boys?

EPV are beginning to follow the lead of other early music ensembles that just let singers get on it with - sing healthily and with great attention to words and musical phrases / shapes. As it's often one-to-a-part, blend can only be managed as an entire group - if the bass, baritone, tenors and altos are singing with body and consistency throughout the range, why crown that with a soprano sound that is the opposite?

There are many fine European groups that are already leading the vocal colour charge - and others that very much rip the whole instruction manual up and stick two fingers up to the whole establishment: Graindelavoix, for example. Who I think are fantastic.

[Vox Humana]

why do people want adult women to sound like prepubescent boys?

For musical reasons, I would suggest, not sexist ones. With everyone I know who likes this sound, it's rather that they prefer the clarity of a straight tone with a little vibrato as possible, preferably in all voice parts. It's just nicer to listen to. It makes the harmony clearer. It also makes counterpoint more transparent. The numerous vibratos in a large opera chorus may tend to iron themselves out to some extent, but the effect of three or four soloists singing an ensemble with what the late David Wulstan once described as a 'gelatinous wobble' is, to me, pretty much the most gruesome experience classical music has to offer. It's frequently quite impossible to hear the actual music that is being sung. I fully accept that plenty of non-musicians who like opera don't find this objectionable at all, but I also find that amateur classical music lovers don't listen forensically to what they hear, but just let the general effect wash over them. It's also not rare to hear general comments like, 'I don't really like that style of singing'—this usually comes from those who prefer more popular-style singing using a microphone.

[ardcarp]

I like to keep an open mind on such issues. When I was a student, the only recordings of the Tudor vocal repertory was sung by....well I won't mention any names....groups with very wobbly sopranos. Unfortunately such voices obbfuscate polyphonic lines, and it wasn't until the likes of The Clerkes of Oxenford and David Wulstan got going that clarity emerged. And many other groups copied them, including ones I sang in. It was a revelation. Much later, the likes of Emma Kirkby came onto the scene. She has a pure-ish voice, BUT it isn't like that of 'a pubescent boy' if you listen carefully. Quite a bit of vibrato in fact, but not a fast wobble.

In reply to your post, Subtuum, I'd say there's room for all manner of singing styles; so vive la difference!

[Magister Chori]

Nice to hear the plainsong antiphon with fauxbourdons, a thing which was entirely new to me, while I actually disliked the performance of the plainsong psalms, with every single note hammered and a very odd latin pronunciation.

[DracoM]

Yes, the 'unusual' Latin pronunciation caught my ear as well.

[ardcarp]

Did anyone have the same experience as me as a kid? Learning Latin in class with 'v' pronounced as 'w' and the 'c' hard and not 'ch'. In other words, "Wainy weedy weeky." Then in the choir it was Italianate. Like being bi-lingual! And more recently there have been theories about how Latin might have been pronounced in England in, say, Tallis's time, so back to the Anglophone. Obviously as a singer you have to go with the flow, but it seems more than likely to me that, given the power of Rome and the Roman Church (with Papal legates everywhere in Europe) Italianate Latin would have been the norm.

I didn't quite catch on to what Pro Victoria was up to on Wednesday. Must listen again.

[Vox Humana]

Nice to hear the plainsong antiphon with fauxbourdons, a thing which was entirely new to me

I suppose I ought to take this up sometime with the person involved, but I think to mix faburden and 'pricksong' in the Magnificat was just plain wrong - in the British context anyway. Unless I've missed something, all the evidence is that, in alternatim forms, choral polyphony was restricted to even-numbered verses (and organ polyphony was restricted to the odd-numbered). There is no evidence I know of that vocal polyphony ever alternated with vocal polyphony and it makes little sense to me. You'd expect some indication of the faburden to be written into the choirbook with the 'pricksong' rather than expect the singer to hold separate music in their hands too, or rely on memory. There's a hymn book with some faburdens inked in lightly above the plainsong neumes and these may include the first verse, or even the complete hymn, but they may have been intended for the organist as much as for singers. The manuscript vocal faburens added at the end of the book (Magnificats and a hymn) do what you'd expect: they restrict themselves to even-numbered verses. So, for me, faburden was used in exactly the same places that 'pricksong' was.

Then again, the service wasn't billed as a liturgical reconstruction, so I suppose it's neither here nor there.

On the question of Latin pronunciation, the Gyffard Partbooks (an Elizabethan compilation) have many very interesting spellings. Asparges (for asperges), Deius, coniam/qoniam (for quoniam), sussipe (for suscipe), assendit, dessendit, crusifixus, dulsedo, exce, exselsis, cepultus (for sepultus), seli (for caeli) and so on. More generally on Tudor pronunciation, there are a couple of interesting chapters by Alison Wray (one dealing with Latin, the other English) in John Morehen (ed), English Choral Practice 1400-1650. I think there's no doubt that in Tudor times, in Latin words, a c followed by e or i was pronounced as s. There's nothing to support 'chees and chaws'.

[Vox Humana]

Did anyone have the same experience as me as a kid? Learning Latin in class with 'v' pronounced as 'w' and the 'c' hard and not 'ch'. In other words, "Wainy weedy weeky."

Yes! It's about the only thing I did learn in Latin classes. Our teacher was inexperienced and totally ineffective and our end of year results were almost universally appallingly low. I think the very few who did well probably had help at home. It wasn't helped by the fact that our English teacher was also poor (old, disillusioned and interested not so much in teaching as in lecturing). I gave it up after just two years and didn't miss it, although I dearly wish now that it hadn't been like that. I'd like to think that teaching techniques and attitudes have moved on a bit from those days, although I do wonder.

[ardcarp]

Off topic, but we had an absolutely charismatic Latin master. He had a broad Lancashire accent despite an Oxbridge degree. He was a bundle of wit, very active in class, and Latin lessons were a thing to look forward to even if his antics were occasionally scary. At a mistake, he'd chuck a board rubber (aimed carefully to miss) at the offender, and on one occasion dangled a boy by the arms outside the classroom window. O tempora O mores. I once translated (English to Latin) the phrase 'Portia's husband', but not realising the word for husband was just 'vir' used 'uxor' instead. He came galloping up to me declaring "She's not a blasted Lesbian, lad" which in those days (1950s) was somewhat daring to say the least. Needless to say the class erupted, as so often happened. We all got good O-level grades without really trying.

[Constantbee]

Yes! It's about the only thing I did learn in Latin classes. Our teacher was inexperienced and totally ineffective and our end of year results were almost universally appallingly low. I think the very few who did well probably had help at home. It wasn't helped by the fact that our English teacher was also poor (old, disillusioned and interested not so much in teaching as in lecturing). I gave it up after just two years and didn't miss it, although I dearly wish now that it hadn't been like that. I'd like to think that teaching techniques and attitudes have moved on a bit from those days, although I do wonder.

As it happens I’ve recently started a weekly lunchtime Latin class, based on ecclesiastical Latin, so the pronunciation’s a lot like modern day Italian, but not exactly the same as what you would hear in a sung service. The ‘h’ as in hodie is not pronounced, for example, so in the spoken language is comes out as ‘odie Christus natus est’, whereas if I’m not mistaken 'h' would be pronounced in a choral setting. The course is ever so good for getting up to speed with understanding the texts of things like the Fayrfax settings in this week’s CE, and being able to cross reference grammatical examples to liturgical texts to makes it a bit easier to retain the information, imho. Dry and dusty for some, maybe, but personally I find it delightful