Document of Early Music Performance Practice
Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 10/31/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"As a wiser fellow Amazonite than I has already made some illuminating comment on this disc, I would like here merely to add some background information and give my personal impression. This CD was published in 1996 as part of Virgin Classics' 'David Munrow Edition' marking the twentieth anniversary of David Munrow's unfortunate suicide. This particular recording was made at London's prestigious Abbey Road studios in September 1973. David Munrow was not only a musician and a musicologist, but also a music journalist of some standing and personally wrote the liner notes for this Dufay disc, thus making it comparatively easy to understand his approach to this exciting but not always easily accessible composer. Munrow points out that Dufay stood on the threshhold of the mediaeval period to the renaissance, and links the stages in his personal career with the assimilation of French, Italian and English styles in that order. The disc begins with the motet 'Gloria ad modum tubae', written when Dufay was a mere twenty or so. Munrow here uses 'ping-pong' stereo technique to emphasize the use of 'hocketing' or 'hiccoughing' between the two countertenor voices (a youthful-sounding James Bowman and Charles Brett) and the two tenor sackbuts: this was French style and reminds one immediately of, for example, Machault. There follows the chanson 'Se la face ay pale', composed some fifteen years later than the first piece and here performed by tenor and countertenor with instrumental accompaniment, demonstrating the Italianate element in Dufay's writing. This piece is complemented by two anonymous organ versions of the song (played by none other than Christopher Hogwood) from the Buxheimer Orgelbuch and an instrumental version for cornet, shawm and sackbuts attributed to Dufay himself. Then follows the main item of the recording, the Mass based on the chanson and written when Dufay was about 50 years old and had assimilated elements of the English style as exemplified by John Dunstable.
The introductory note to the edition points out that 'in the intervening years, scholarship and performing practices have moved on healthily'. Stated baldly, this means that today nobody would dream of performing Dufay's music the way David Munrow did. Particularly, the use of instruments to accompany the Mass is very questionable. It 'thickens' the textures to the point where it is difficult, if not impossible, to hear all that is going on vocally; as with Machault's 'Messe de Nostre Dame', a purely vocal treatment without the countertenor dominating would probably be both more historical and would make this beautiful music much more transparent. As this is a remastered analogue disc, there is also some hissing background noise to contend with. The total playing time is a mere 45 minutes and ten seconds.
This is a document of the history of historical performance practice, and as such of immense value for musicians and musicologists. If you are just looking for a Dufay recording to enjoy, you might find the Hilliard Ensemble (at least two of whose members can also be heard on Munrow's disc) more satisfying."
Gorgeous Traditional Approach to Dufay's Se la face ay pale
Dr. Christopher Coleman | HONG KONG | 10/06/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"It may well be hard for anyone to find this disc at amazon, as it doesn't show up in the search engine with "David Munrow" or "The Early Music Consort of London" and that's a shame. The bulk of the CD is devoted to Dufay's composition Se la face ay pale" ("If my face is pale")--in the original version as a secular love song; in two different keyboard versions; in a four-part mixed instrumental version; and finally in the parody mass so well known to music historians. This latter piece is a polyphonic five-movement mass in which the theme of the secular song is inserted as a cantus firmus (a melody usually moving in slower note values) around which counterpoints (other melodic lines) are woven. Most listeners will not follow the theme in the mass, or indeed, even be aware of it at all. The only other work on the disc is a short Gloria ad modum tubae--Gloria in the trumpet's mode--that uses the open notes of the trumpet (in this case, performed on sackbut, a precursor of the trombone, not the trumpet) as an ostinato (repeated pattern) around which the voices move freely. Imagine singers with an accompanying bugle and you won't be far off. The Gloria, for all its peculiarity, doesn't fascinate me--personally I'm actually sort of annoyed by it. The other works on the disc are compelling, though, and beautifully performed.
Two main schools of thought contend with one another in the performance of Medieval and Renaissance music. The traditional school sees this music as very pure and does little to enhance the notes provided with ornamentation; there may be some limited instrumental doubling of the lines but its minimal and serves not to color the music as much as to provide a strong pitch foundation for the singers. Percussion is usually omitted altogether; male countertenors are prefered over female altos and sopranos and vocalists strive for a pure tone usually without vibrato. The opposing school seeks to make the music more lively, suggesting that there's much about this music that wasn't notated at all, and so performances can range widely from what we have on the page. In particular, some followers of this approach believe there was a strong Middle Eastern influence via Moorish Spain; they'll add hand drums frequently, and inflect the music with many ornamentations, including microtonal pitch bends. Vibrato is embraced instead of abhored. Female singers are often used--the Allegorie Ensemble's L'Arbre de Mai CD that I recently reviewed is a good example of this approach.
David Munrow, with the Early Music Consort of London, are traditionalists, and excellent traditionalists at that. It's a lovely sound they've created, one in which the purity of sound seems to reflect the purity of religious feeling the words express. Where things are added, particularly instrumentation, the choices are subtle and sophisticated. The idea is to enhance the notes which have come down to us over 600 years, not to replace them. In the Sanctus, for example, the vocalists sometimes sing a cappella, and sometimes with instruments; sometimes the instruments double all the lines, sometimes only a single line--but they never add notes or inflect them; the texture is strictly polyphonic, with no eastern heterophonic influence at all. Changes in texture and timbre reflect changes in text and so seem entirely appropriate. Even though the disc is a scant 45 minutes long--it's a re-issue from the time of vinyl--this interpretation is so lovely it's really worth having."
Track Listings (7) - Disc #1