Woodcut from the title-page of Ganassi ‘s Opera intitulata Fontegara (Venice, 1535)
Renaissance Music for Recorders
RECORDERS
Tutor: Grace Barton
Location: St Mary the Virgin, Cilcain
Reviewer: Ros Flinn
Early 16th century vocal music for recorders, Grace Barton, Cilcain, April 22nd.
Eighteen recorder players from the region gathered for an extraordinary day of exploration. The ‘Early 16th century’ music we had been promised, all lovingly arranged by David Allen from keyboard or vocal pieces, turned out to be fascinatingly complex and ornate compared to the later renaissance music with which we were more familiar.
Our warm-up piece, the seven-part Ego Flos Campi by Jacobus Clemens non Papa (c1510-1556), presented few challenges and its tuneful polyphony was pleasing to the ear. However, the Gloria from the ten-part two-choir Missa Dum Sacrum Mysterium of Scottish composer Robert Carver (also known as Carvor and Arnot c1485 – c1570) was much more complex and took up the rest of the morning! Highly ornamented, with many an off-the-beat entry and change of pulse, it was, I think, a surprise to us all and thoroughly enjoyable to play.
Our next composer, Antoine Brumel (c1460-1512 or 1513), was one of the first French members of the Renaissance Franco-Flemish school and best known for his masses. The Kyrie from his Missa Et ecce terrae motus for twelve voices looked simple enough on the page as I accepted a one-to-a-part descant line until I realised that the beat was in semibreves and it contained quavers! However it was in fact mostly tranquil and rather beautiful and the group coped masterfully, by now used to off-the-beat entries and weird syncopations.
The Netherlandish composer Heinrich Isaac’s (c1450-1517) Kyrie from the Missa Paschale was a lively piece with three semibreves to a bar, the customary off-the-beat entries and cascading polyphony and we ended the day with an arrangement of La Spagna, a very popular tune of the time, by Josquin des Prez (c1455-1521). It was lively, busy, challenging and made a fitting end to an excellent day.
Ros Flinn
First published in June 2017 Newsletter
