Opinions on the merits of recently issued CDs have been in demand here at the FAQ. Generally speaking, we try to concentrate on factually-based information. However, I am now doing the present editorializing. I will be writing some remarks every month on recordings which inspire me to make remarks.
These are brief remarks, not real reviews. The remarks may assume that the reader is familiar with various other items, or even the recording in question. I urge you to always look at "FAQ references" links in the referenced files, as well as the CD files themselves. For more comments on what a "review" means to me, as well as links to some other opinions, see the bottom of this page.
Comments are updated at the end of each month, and appear in months during which the CDs actually make their way to me, allowing a few days at the end of the month to prepare the comments. I do not delay in requesting new releases of interest, but the vagaries of shipment from Europe can mean that items arrive here in later months. I do not consider CDs to be "new" if I did not attempt to hear them when they first appeared.
Nothing to discuss this month.
The Christophorus label continues its unprecedented exploration of the secular music of the late 15th century with another recording by Ensemble Leones, this time devoted to Agricola. Agricola's secular & instrumental music has fared remarkably well on record, with this the 4th dedicated collection (not even counting Graindelavoix's landmark "Cecus" album). As with the other releases by this group of related ensembles on Christophorus, the attention to detail in the instrumental work on this release rises to another level. This item was added to my personal list, replacing the releases from the 1980s & 1990s.
A 3 CD set of motets by Willaert performed by Singer Pur has also appeared this month. This is from a late & retrospective collection of motets & madrigals by Willaert, Musica Nova published in 1559, and apparently closely corrected & supervised by the composer. The close attention to text underlay provides an opportunity to study that practice in music that would have been somewhat old-fashioned at the time. There is a tendency toward placidity, however, that marked Italian origin sacred music of the period, much as per my remarks on Arcadelt in November. This trend also clearly influenced music written for social circles outside the Vatican, as in this publication. By this time, this is what Willaert's younger colleagues considered to be "classical perfection," already inscribing (via the family, per the liner notes) the "Palestrina style" with revisionist history.
So after expressing some frustration last month, the new Ockeghem recording from Musica Nova did indeed arrive in March. This item came with high expectations, buoyed by waiting since December when it was officially released, and it's indeed a strong interpretation that I added to my personal list. It replaced the old Hilliard Ensemble recording, which had been on that list for the longest period of time, and so somewhat marks the end of an era (within the extremely narrow field of me making recording lists). Although the Missa Prolationum had received three other full vocal interpretations in the interim, none had really distinguished itself. In Musica Nova's case, the recording makes for a natural followup to their ground-breaking 4-fold recording of the Missa Cuiusvis toni, and clearly builds on that experience. While not as illuminating as that recording from 2007, the current release gives us an updated interpretation from manuscript sources of one of the monuments of the period, along with two motets.
I've still not been able to obtain a copy of Kandel's new Ockeghem recording, as delays pile upon delays. I'm starting to wonder if it will ever actually be available here.
That leaves me with a brief discussion of an arrangement of Ars Subtilior music for solo classical guitar, Guitars Subtilior by Branimir Krstic. I like the idea of taking medieval repertory to new places, and so this effort is welcome, although the sound is very much that of "classical guitar" with the medieval aspect not sounding very characteristic at times. Different tuning would probably be necessary to change the instrument's resonance and give a more medieval sound, but perhaps that is not the point.
We have had quite a fertile last few years in investigating Franco-Flemish polyphony, although it would be hard to say that the picture of Josquin as either composer or person has clarified much. There remains a great deal of uncertainty about his life & oeuvre, seemingly ironic for the most celebrated figure of the era, but perhaps a natural outcome of that fame. A recent recording by the previously unknown (to me) Cut Circle ensemble tackles a very specific piece of Josquin's career, including music by contemporaries for context — and illumination of their own. Besides some rather specific stylistic investigation of Josquin's music, this album includes the most music devoted yet to both De Orto & Weerbeke (the latter at a mere three tracks). Although I had pages at the FAQ for the composers to whom Petrucci dedicated his first six volumes of mass publications (including Weerbeke), I only now inaugurated a page for De Orto, the composer of the seventh such publication. The complete Missa L'homme armé from De Orto is the most striking piece on this double album, which (unfortunately?) includes many individual mass sections without their full cycles. In that sense, besides largely introducing De Orto, the program is constructed to illustrate stylistic or technical devices in Josquin's music at the Vatican. In fact, it's suggested that Josquin's first L'homme armé mass might have been written to one-up De Orto's (and De Orto's Missa Ad fugam to one-up Josquin's, although the latter might not be authentic). Whereas De Orto's music presents a rather "busy" style (sort of a more old-fashioned — metrically — Gombert?), it's difficult to generalize about Weerbeke's style from the three very different tracks devoted to him. It should also be noted that the "recent" nature of this production is only partial, as the two complete mass cycles were recorded back in 2008, and only now released. Overall, this program presents some intriguing and previously unknown music, and makes some interesting interpretive suggestions about some better known music. One thing it rejects rather decisively is the older generation of "smoothed over" interpretations, where this music was conceived as slow & meditative, and individual parts tried to hide in the whole (via ficta, ignoring rhythmic displacements, etc.). I'm not at all sad to see the "smoothed over" style go.
I intend to keep 4 to 6 months' worth of comments on this page, depending on the length of the individual entries. Once the comments expire, they are gone forever, and rightly so.
My opinion of "reviews" is as such: It takes a good deal of work to write a proper review. Simply paraphrasing the liner notes and adding something to the effect of "It sounds cool to me; check it out!" or "It doesn't seem like the performance from which I learned the work" does not do the job justice. Any time someone is asked to churn through a long list of recordings to regularly write reviews, there is almost no chance that the reviews will be fully informed. The only chance is if the reviewer is intimately familiar with the music in question, the requisite interpretive decisions, and the intentions of the performer. This can only be true rarely, even for a scholar. We do not attempt to write regular reviews for the FAQ, nor do we call them that. Beyond not wanting to inject more opinion than necessary into our information, this is an admission of our own failings, and frankly, many reviewers should admit the same instead of pretending to write reviews about something with which they have little familiarity (that this happens frequently is patently obvious).
I sometimes write reviews, but I am not attempting to write any here. Hopefully the editorializing I am doing will, however, be interesting. I usually restrict FAQ comments to be positive only, but here I will give some negative comments too, if that is the notable thing about a release. As for what silence says? I leave it to you to infer.
To more of Todd McComb's personal opinions:
See also: discussion of "progress" in interpreting this music, or links to other recordings lists.
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Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org>