Nave of Jeronimos Monastery, Lisbon, Portugal
Masterpieces of the Portuguese Golden Age
VOICES
Tutor: David Allinson
Location: Holy Ascension Church, Upton, Chester
Reviewer: Jill Mitchell
What a wealth of workshops we have enjoyed during the past year, and how indebted we are to the organisational energy and imagination of our last Chairman, Mark, and his committee! NWEMF “broke up” for the summer on June 27th in the chuckling company of David Allinson with an exhilarating day spent exploring some of the sumptuous Portuguese repertoire of the early seventeenth century. The two composers, Manuel Cardoso and Duarte Lobo, were almost exact contemporaries, born in the mid 1570s and dying four year apart at the half-way point of the next century. Both served part of their musical apprenticeship in the choir school of Évora cathedral, where they were taught by Manuel Mendes, by whom they were much inspired, producing highly charged music in the style antico vein, shot through, however, by occasionally disturbing harmonies.
We began with Lobo’s Pater, peccavi, the words with which the Prodigal Son acknowledges his fecklessness, imploring absolution. It is a fruitful text for composers with an eye on the liturgies of Lent and this is another beautiful, anguished account of it, breathing the desire for reconciliation and forgiveness. A second fine motet by Lobo was the exquisite Audivi vocem de caelo, which I have loved since first encountering it. It is unusual in polyphony to spotlight one line the way the composer twice does here. The 1st sopranos make the dramatically exultant opening declaration “I heard a voice from heaven”, discreetly followed and shadowed by the 2nd altos, then gradually substantiated by the other part until four increasingly-excited repetitions of “dicentes mihi” give way again to the sopranos’ soaring “Beati mortui”, the words of authoritative heavenly assurance (Blessed are those who die in the Lord), which are then taken up and wonderingly mused upon by the other five voices.
Cardoso’s Sitivit is a setting of the slightly less familiar text which follows (as verse 2) the famous opening to the 42nd Psalm, “Sicut Cervus”, and parallels and completes its thought. It is a deeply meditative piece, full of desperate yearning for the Divine connection: the thirsting soul longs for the fountain of the living God. David pointed out how “organic” it was, every idea growing inevitably out of the last one in single-minded intensity “like the patient but relentless reeling-in of a gigantic fish”. It is an ardent, totally focused whole and, this being so, the over-arching phrasing was tricky before one had better understood its structure. It was all too easy to break the line, failing to direct it through its meaningful consummation. Sitivit looks deceptively innocent on the page but required sustained concentration from the outset to convey its rapturous conviction.
We turned then to Cardoso’s Requiem for 6, looking first at the Kyrie, “a real little gem, a little piece of genius imbued with a mood of warm reassurance”, as David described it. Then we moved backwards, liturgically speaking, to the Introit which, naturally, begins with the Chant intonation “Requiem aeternam”. When first encountered, the progression of the 2nd sopranos through their initial arching phrase is startling, establishing then brazenly contradicting harmonic expectations in its intervals; we gasp and wonder for the moment what mode we are supposed to be in! It is an eye-watering opening, wrenching away the moorings, defying parameters, compelling attention before settling into rather more recognisable channels, having made its eloquent, arresting point.
David’s enthusiasm for this repertoire is contagious: an expert in the field, he is also a fine singer who is able lyrically to demonstrate a sequence he wants us to improve. Illuminating and effortless imagery pours from him as he makes a point:
“That is a veritable duvet of chords – tog 47! – wrapped around the timeless Chant.”
“We’ll leave that for a bit, try putting it under a wet towel to prove!”
“Good, chaps! You could bottle that testosterone and promote it as After-Shave!”
“Now, would we actually be able to sell that chord on in the market, or would we be reduced to putting it in the “Rummage Box”? Altos, that’s a bit “approximate”: here’s a new “D”.”
David’s good humour and seriousness are in perfect balance. He gave us food for thought in talking of the essentially collaborative nature of polyphony: singers needed both courtesy and the confidence-to commit, without domination and thinking it all depended on themselves. At one point we all turned outwards to the perimeter of the parish hall to sing, perforce using our ears to rather sharper effect than usual, with a clear advance in achievement. There had been 26 of us there, a well-balanced, capable group of voices, who came away enriched, delighted and made wiser by the experience our tutor had given us.
As a musical colleague – given, it might be said, to such straight-faced, gnomic utterance – observed to me afterwards, “It all makes one somewhat impatient of lesser men!”
Jill Mitchell
First published in September 2015 Newsletter
