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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

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Micklegate Singers, St Lawrence Church, York, March 24

Micklegate Singers: “Laying out a typically adventurous menu”

IN a Lent-themed programme entitled Beyond The World, the Micklegate Singers under Nicholas Carter laid out a typically adventurous menu built round the first complete performance of A Quaker Trilogy, featuring three composers responding to a text by William Penn.

Renaissance motets framed mainly living composers reflecting on life and death. At the start, Manuel Cardoso’s setting of a lesson for Maundy Thursday matins showed admirable restraint, well suited to a slow-moving soprano line against more active polyphony in the lower voices. His style typified the mid-17th century Portuguese penchant for colourful harmony, which was conveyed neatly here.

At the end of the evening, dynamic contrasts and smooth metre-changing lent Byrd’s Haec Dies plenty of excitement. Owing more than a little to its style was Howells’ setting of the same text, heard immediately before, with its leaping octaves before the final climax every bit as exultant.

Rhythmic spice was less evident in many of the modern works. The various sections of Matthew Martin’s Missa Brevis (St Dominic), interspersed through the first half, were a welcome exception, with a particularly lively ‘Gloria’ and carefree abandon at the first ‘Hosanna’ in the Sanctus.

On paper, the Penn trilogy looked like an excellent idea. But the chosen passage, doubtless well known to Quakers from its use at memorial meetings, but less so to those of other faiths, was heavily freighted with eschatological philosophy and not an obvious choice for musical setting. For its meaning to remain clear, it required delicate handling and minimal use of polyphony, a severe handicap to the University of York composers concerned.

The poster for the Micklegate Singers’ Beyond The World concert

David McGregor took some time to thin his texture into clarity, before reaching a spacious close evoking eternity. Joe Bates began chordally and was alive to the flow of words, even introducing some humming, before a thoughtful finish. Frederick Viner, the only one to set the entire passage, also took a mainly chordal approach, concluding with a low-lying intimacy that respected the text’s vision.

All three settings had something positive to offer. But it is doubtful whether they should be heard consecutively; they were not on this occasion. Having the same text set by three composers simultaneously is perhaps not such a great idea: who wants to hear the same message three times over? But don’t take my word for it. The three versions will be heard together on June 8 at The Mount School, at 1pm, as part of the York Festival of Ideas (entrance is free).

Other contributions, all tastefully handled, came from Ivo Antognini, whose modal Lux Aeterna benefited from gentle counterpoint and close harmony, and Ben Parry’s thoughtful Lighten Our Darkness.

James Whitbourn, who had died at the age of 60 only 12 days earlier, was represented by He Carried Me Away In The Spirit, a slow-moving meditation from the Book of Revelation memorable for its ecstatic phrase on ‘holy Jerusalem’.

Best of all these, however, was James MacMillan’s Who Shall Separate Us?, which keeps its words from Romans paramount. Its very high forceful Alleluia before an extremely hushed Amen were superbly done.

The Micklegate Singers are Yorkshire’s most adventurous chamber choir. Long may they remain so.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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REVIEW: Steve Crowther’s verdict on Yorkshire Baroque Soloists & Rose Consort of Viols, York Early Music Festival

Helen Charlston: “Alto voice so clear in both quality and volume in the lower range”

York Early Music Festival: Yorkshire Baroque Soloists & Rose Consort of Viols, Body And Soul, St Lawrence Church, York, July 11

THIS was excellent. Real refinement and clarity was the order of the day, both in texture and line. The balance was impeccable, the instrumental playing was crisp, articulate, and the singers a joy.

They seemed at ease as soloists, in ensemble engagement and comfortable too in their own vocal range: this was particularly true of Helen Charlston. Not that she was the pick of an excellent quintet, but I haven’t heard an alto voice so clear in both quality and volume in the lower range. The church acoustic was excellent, and it behaved itself too.

However, my role isn’t just to soak the performance with appreciation and blessings but to review it, so here we go. 

The concert was descriptively labelled Body And Soul, which was particularly appropriate for the first-half performance of Buxtehude’s vocal masterpiece, Membra Jesu Nostri Patientis Sanctissima. The work is a set of seven short, beautifully crafted cantatas for Holy Week. The text is a medieval hymn cycle in which the author looks in wonder at the body of the crucified Christ.

We experience the mystical contemplations of different parts of his body: the feet in the first cantata, to the knees, hands, side and breast, and the heart to the face. Quite extraordinary.

Buxtehude’s music has a gentle, austere beauty to it, and this was enhanced by the economy of performers: five soloists, six instrumentalists, including Peter Seymour on organ, plus the Rose Consort of Viols.

The soloists teased out every nuance of the text. They lingered deliciously on every expressive dissonance and suspension, while the players added warmth, colour, as well as crisp commentary.

There was a gorgeously intense, yet poignant concerto Quid Sunt Plagae Istae. Maybe it was just me, but I thought the dramatic percussive opening of this third cantata suggestive of the nails being hammered into Christ’s hands. Perhaps not.

The dramatic focal centre of the work was the fourth movement Ad Cor. The Vulnerasti Cor Meum had a tortured intimacy, the singers embracing the honesty and humanity of the text. The precision in the agitated off-beat accents of the concluding Amen worked well.

Nevertheless, in the concluding four movements of Ad Faciem there is a relaxing of the tension, a meditative closure.

The performance captured a fascinating subtle layer of creative tension between the Catholic mysticism of the text and Buxtehude’s Lutheran faith. Maybe. We don’t seem to dwell on the sufferings of the crucified Christ but celebrate the “graces that flow from that suffering”, its humanity. 

In short, the performance was both radiant and illuminating. A triumph for Peter Seymour, who must have been delighted.

Two little grumbles. Firstly, although it did have the intended dramatic effect, change of colour and so forth, the introduction of the excellent Rose Consort of Viols did temporarily break the spell. But then again, I wasn’t ready or expecting the changing of the guard.

Secondly, although I invariably find (composer and) performer biographies tedious essays in vanity, I would have expected some biographical acknowledgement of these superb performers in the programme: sopranos Bethany Seymour and Helen Neeves, alto Helen Charlston, tenor Jonathan Hanley and bass Frederick Long. Violins, Lucy Russell and Gabriella Jones; cello, Rachel Gray; violone, Rosie Moon; theorbo, Toby Carr and organ & director, Peter Seymour. Take a bow.

Finally, the concert was dedicated to the memory of Klaus Neumann, an important figure in the York Early Music Festival. Mr Seymour gave a touching tribute and kept the programme photo on the organ next to the Buxtehude score. It summed the evening up nicely.

P.S. Bach’s Jesu, Meine Freude was very good too.

Review by Steve Crowther