Fyer, fyer! (a bonfire day special for singers and instrumentalists)
VOICES & INSTRUMENTS
Tutor: Robert Hollingworth
Location: Didsbury Baptist Church, Manchester
Reviewer: Valerie Pedlar
Appropriately for a day that the English celebrate with bonfires and fireworks, Robert Hollingworth had chosen fire as the theme for the day. A large group of singers and instrumentalists assembled at the comfortable Baptist Chapel in Didsbury. There were a few versatile people who offered more than one skill, but we ended up with a nicely balanced choir of about forty singers and a dozen or so instrumentalists, including cornetts, sackbuts, recorders, and viols. There was even a curtal – an instrument I have to admit I’m not aware of having seen before.
The ways in which the various pieces we tackled were related to the theme of the day was illuminating. Bonfires are of course a time-honoured way of getting rid of the unwanted, and it was in 1497 that Savaronola, outraged by the worldly excesses of the Florentines, lit his first Bonfire of the Vanities on which to throw finery, the frivolous and the blasphemous as a way of getting rid of what he (if not all the citizens) considered unwanted. This I learned is what inspired Josquin’s Miserere. Those of us who were members of the Renaissance Music Group have sung this setting before under the direction of Morris Davies, but I hadn’t realized that it was the first time all the words of the Miserere had been set.
Robert paired this work with one by Orlando Lassus: Infelix ego in 3 parts, parts 1 and 3 in 6 voices, the middle part in 4 voices (no sopranos). The words are by Savonarola himself, his mediation on the opening of the Miserere or Psalm 50 (51). Setting the concluding words, ‘Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam’, Lassus alludes to, but, unlike most other composers before him, doesn’t quote directly from Josquin.
It was a ballett for 5 voices by Morley that provided the title for the workshop. Fyer, fyer! has the usual ‘fa la la’ refrain, with the words of the verses telling of a burning heart begging for water to quench the fire. Tomkins’ madrigal in 6 parts, on the other hand, is a polyphonic setting of 6 lines of text that compare the ‘contraries’ of fire and water with love and hate. Perhaps the greatest challenge of the day – for the singers, if not the instrumentalists – was a piece by Mateo Flecha the Elder (1481-1553). El fuego is an ensalada, so-called because (like a salad) it is a mixture – of languages, typically Spanish, Latin, Catalan, French, Italian. I was aware of the Spanish and the Latin, but didn’t recognize any French or Italian. There may well have been Catalan in the mixture, but I couldn’t distinguish it from the Spanish. The music which balances homophonic with polyphonic sections wasn’t too difficult, but getting the words articulated was! And there are a lot of them. Music of energetic dancing rhythms works quickly through about 46 lines of text (in the English translation), in a complicated structure of verses, and refrains where the voices imitate bells or instruments. This piece is about the fire of human sinfulness, calling for acts of penance as the water to extinguish the ‘furnace of your evil desires’. The urgency of the repeated imperatives (‘Ring those bells’, ‘Don’t delay’, ‘Bring water right away!’ etc) calms down in the last quarter of the text as the writer points out that the purest source of water is the Virgin, and through her and the birth of Christ our thirst is quenched. It was the strangest Christmas-type piece I’ve ever come across.
Robert took us through this interesting and challenging programme with his usual energy and flair. Information, anecdote and humour were mingled, so that I, for one, came away having learned a lot and had a thoroughly enjoyable day. So thanks to him, thanks to Peter Syrus for providing the scores and parts, and thanks to the NWEMF committee for organizing the day.
Valerie Pedlar
First published in February 2017 Newsletter
