Posted on

REVIEW: Steve Crowther’s verdict on York Early Music Festival, Ensemble In Echo, St Lawrence Church, York, July 10

Gawain Glenton: Director of Ensemble In Echo

THE director of Ensemble In Echo, cornetto player Gawain Glenton, introduced the concert with: “Happy to see a full church”.  Well, Amen to that, although I’m not quite sure whether this was a compliment or a dig.

Talking of digs, Mr Glenton did give 21st century Western [music] a kick up the sackbutt with regard to fetishising newness and innovation, considering them to be “the defining elements of true”.

There is some truth here, but this certainly doesn’t apply to 20th century jazz, although this point was made later in the informative programme notes.

The programme header, Metamorfosi – Italian Transformations, epitomised the 2024 festival theme of ‘imitation being the sincerest form of flattery’. And some. The whole concert brimmed with music based on composers’ refashioning of music of other composers.

Take, for example, Jacob van Eyck’s Amarilli Mia Bella. This piece is in effect a set of continuous variations based on Giulio Caccini’s beautiful but somewhat artificial song My Lovely Amaryllis:

“My lovely Amaryllis,

Don’t you know, O my heart’s sweet desire,

That it is you whom I love?

Open my breast and see written on my heart:

Amaryllis, Amaryllis, Amaryllis, is my love.” (English translation by Paul Archer)

If you replace ‘Amaryllis’ with ‘Horse’ (Father Ted), then the artificial translates into delicious farce.

Anyway, the performance was quite wonderful. Trombone calls, sunshine-bright string responses and one of the most beautifully ornamented melodies I have ever heard (Gawain Glenton, recorder).

Didier Lupi’s Susanne Un Jour is a song setting of a 16th-century French poem by Guillaume Guéroult. And again, artificiality is the poetic driver:

“One day, Susanne’s love was solicited

By two old men coveting her beauty.

She became sad and discomforted at heart,

Seeing the attempt on her chastity.”

Lupi’s chanson setting was reworked by di Lasso, transforming it into a five-voice setting, which in turn was reworked into this virtuosic showpiece by Giovanni Bassano. The performance was again a jaw-dropping delight: trombone and strings creating velvety curtains of sound contrasting a fun-filled duelling duet by the violin (Oliver Webber) and cornetto. The melodic embellishment was breathtaking and delivered with true panache.

Ornamental transformation was seriously on offer with Silas Wollston’s harpsichord performance of Giovanni Maria Trabaci’s Ancidetemi Pur. This had an earlier incarnation as a plain four-part madrigal by Jaques Arcadelt. However, I am far from sure if the actual respect and recognisability of Arcadelt’s madrigal is at all meaningful.

The harpsichord realisation in Mr Wollston’s performance was delightfully bonkers. Blistering scales, ornaments, contrapuntal overload with an occasional contemporary tonal twist or inflection. It did indeed remind me of Gawain Glenton’s take: “As with 20th century jazz standards, the interest with such works lay in hearing an admired musician’s ‘take’ on a particular piece.’”

The performance of Allessandro Striggio’s Ancor Ch’io Possa Dire (originally a 16th century smash hit) was another tour de force, but the lineage of musical begetting passed me by.

By contrast, the intimacy of Gabriello Puliti and Pietro San Giorgio’s setting and responses to Vestiva I Colli came as welcome relief. The former brought Gawain Glenton’s cornetto back to the frontline, gently firing bursts of richly decorated joy. Goodness me, this was good.

The San Giorgio featured a tender duet with Oliver Webber (violin) and Rachel Byrt (viola), adding some sober dignity to the proceedings.

Philippe Verdelot’s Dormendo Un Giorno brought some welcome relief as Mr Glenton took a well-earned break. It was a beautiful lament, sounding as if they actually missed him. How sweet.

After the loveliest of trios by Vincenzo Ruffo, the concert ended with Giovanni Grillo’s seven-part instrumental Sonata Prima.

Not only did the composer embrace the antiphonal music of Giovanni Gabrieli, who in turn embraced and exploited the architecture of the great Italian basilica at San Marco in Venice. But also, in the words of Mr Glenton, “Grillo plainly inserts not one, but two of the most popular secular songs of the 16th century: Susanne Un Jour and Vestiva I Colli. Grillo quotes both pieces at length in a manner that must have brought a smile to all who heard it.”

Now that is a shedload of musical imitation, metamorphosis and flattery. The performance was full of joy and engagement with a delicious, bubbling signing-off.

Review by Steve Crowther

Posted on

Violin and cornetto clash as Bojan Cicic and Gawain Glenton declare Battaglia! in York Early Music Christmas Festival at NCEM

Battaglia! combatants Bojan Cicic, left, and Gawain Glenton with peacekeeper Silas Wollston

IN the late-16th and 17th centuries, the cornetto and violin were considered equals despite their obvious differences.

The cornetto was the older, aristocratic instrument, a symbol of church and state, pomp and ceremony. Enter the violin, the irreverent newcomer, emerging from a background of dance music for the street and tavern.

For a short period, composers saw these rival virtuoso instruments as interchangeable, with many pieces written for ‘cornetto overo violino’ (cornetto or violin).

Roll forward to Saturday, December 11 2021, and let Battaglia commence, kick-off at 1pm, when Gawain Glenton, cornetto, and Bojan Cicic, violin, clash in A Contest of Equals, refereed by peacekeeper Silas Wollston on organ.

“I’ve always loved the historic rivalry between two instruments that now seem so different but were first considered equals and rivals,” says Gawain.

“Works were written for either cornetto or violin, which we would think strange now, but at the time they were considered alternatives, with the cornetto as the noble aristocrat and the violin as the cocky upstart, shedding its reputation for drunken revelry.

“Violin virtuosos began to be considered musicians of merit, being taken seriously as musicians, artists and composers. Before that, the cornetto had been a mainstay, the instrument of choice for the grandest of church and state events, but gradually its noble status was accompanied by the caché that it was falling out of fashion.”

The “Contest of Equals” spanned 75 years from the late-16th century to the mid-17th century. “The cornetto was played by an elite bunch of professional musicians; the violin, by amateurs, and consequently, partly because of a trick of the publishing industry being a market for professional musicians only, composers would say they wrote works for the violin, even though they were considered to be dilettantes.”

Now, Glenton and Cicic revisit the rivalry in a spirit of playfulness. “I love to bring that spirit to the concert platform, just as Bojan plays with that same spontaneity, when people often get po-faced about classical music,” says Gawain.

Gawain Glenton and Silas Wollston’s new album. The Myth Of Venice

“You must bring a playful attitude to it, as espoused by Luigi Zenobi [also known as Luigi del Cornetto], the 16th century Italian court cornetto player, noted for his ‘scherzare’ [playfulness].

“It was the attitude you had to bring to being a professional musician, never playing the same piece the same way twice – and I love that spontaneity in Early music.”

Glenton and Bojan have a history of working together, whether playing in each other’s ensembles or on each other’s recordings. “We spark off each other, and then Silas Wollston keeps us on the straight and narrow at the Battaglia! concerts,” says Gawain.

“We want people to leave our concerts with a smile on their face, having learnt of music they’d never heard before, thinking, ‘wow, there is so much out there to discover’.”

Why did Gawain choose to play the cornetto rather than, say, the violin? “It was the playfulness that I loved. I was really drawn to the sound. When you hear it, it’s almost confusing, thinking, ‘is it a boy treble or a saxophone?’. The first time I heard it, it was like a ray of sunshine,” he says.

“I always played wind instruments, whereas my violin ‘career’ stopped at Grade 3, and the other thing I love about the cornetto is that because you’re stepping outside the modern classical world, you don’t get someone telling you what to do, so I’m pretty much my own boss, able to do my own thing.”

Such a free rein resulted in the October release of Glenton and Wollston’s album, The Myth Of Venice, on Delphian Records. “This is the first cornetto recital recording to come out in the UK in 25 years,” says Gawain.

This weekend, the focus falls on the renewal of the rivalry between cornetto and violin with music from Italy, Germany and Spain. Who will emerge victorious? Be there, at one o’clock on Saturday, to find out.

Battaglia!, A Contest of Equals, with Bojan Cicic, violin, Gawain Glenton, cornetto, and Silas Wollston, organ, York Early Music Christmas Festival, National Centre for Early Music, York, Saturday (11/12/2021), 1pm. Box office: 01904 658338 or at ncem.co.uk.