Tallis Scholars, Anyone?

I went to a fun concert by the Tallis Scholars at the National Gallery of Art this afternoon.  I've seen the early music supergroup perform a couple times over the years, usually with a different roster of singers each time, always under the direction of the ensemble's founder Peter Phillips.  I was fortunate to find a listing of the concert among the free events at the Gallery (a treat, as I've paid a pretty penny to see them in the past).

Perhaps I should have titled this, "Palestrina, Anyone?" as the concert featured a couple pieces by Renaissance great Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina paired with settings of the same texts from the Song of Solomon by other composers, frankly a fun programming choice, followed by modern works of of great contrast.  The text of the first "Sicut lilium" is an unusually secular and sensuous text for Palestrina, whom most singers know from singing sacred pieces in churches:  "As the lily among the thorns, so is my love among the daughters.  As the apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons.  I sat down under his shadow, who I desired, and his fruit was sweet to my taste."

The first setting of the text by a Spanish composer, Sebastian de Vivanco, sounded like it could have been written in Venice for St. Mark's Cathedral, as the choir was split in two, with each group taking turns singing phrases and joining for big cadences, a common practice at St. Mark's during the Renaissance.  Palestrina's setting featured aching points of imitation (for the non-music dork, a point of imitation is essentially a miniature round like "Row, row, row your boat" on a phrase of the text but with ornamented melodies and cadences overlapping with the next round) were textbook Palestrina, with a little more expressive and dissonant writing than most of his typical sacred works.  The ensemble had recorded a mass based on the piece, so the melodies and their character were familiar to the ensemble.   

After floating in the sixteenth century for the first couple pieces, the program travelled to the twentieth-first century like a choral Tardis for the first of a couple works by a composer I didn't know, Nico Muhly (but after hearing his music, I SHOULD know).  The first piece--and the piece I preferred of the two--named "Marrow" began with some hovering crunchy chords sung the women as the men began the poignant text.  The whole ensemble eventually sang bits of the text together until the piece decrescendoed into a peaceful denouement.

The most extensive work on the program was by Renaissance Jack of All Trades Orlando Di Lasso, adept in composing songs, madrigals, as well as sacred works.  The ensemble sang his Missa Vinum Bonum.  Though much of the singing in the concert was full bore to take advantage of the resonant space, the mass featured more contrasting dynamics, particularly as the whole ensemble (all ten singers) was reduced to quartets and quintets to provide welcome contrast, making the complete tutti sections even more exhilarating.

The second work by Muhly, "A Glorious Creature," began with exciting effect as the singers repeated the opening text "The sun" over and over in changing chords.  As the work wore on, however, the muddy acoustics of the National Gallery's West Court rendered the musical efforts of the singers into a soup of sound that wasn't as satisfying as the rest of the program.  Perhaps the work would have worked better in a less live acoustic.

The choral Tardis retuned to the Renaissance with another pairing of settings of the Song of Songs by Palestrina and another of his contemporaries, Cipriano de Rore.  The text of the second piece, "Descendi in hortum meum" was, like the piece earlier in the program, alive with imagery that would feel awkward in a church service.  "I went down into my garden to see the fruit of the valleys and to see if the vine was in bloom and the pomegranate in bud."

The de Rore version with seven voice parts was a fun contrast to Palestrina's, as de Rore would change the texture from four to five to seven voice parts.  Palestrina's take on the text featured, again, points of imitation overlapping then resolving at cadences.

Hearing the two not entirely sacred works by Palestrina reminded me how curious I was about his non-liturgical works when I was a music student several decades ago.  I wrote a paper about them, "Palestrina's Secular Madrigals: 'Corruptors of Youth'" which was included in a festschrift for a visiting professor, Irving Godt.  My professor, Theodore Albrecht, was a super guy and even sent a copy of the book, Himmlischer Godt, to the Library of Congress.  I found the catalog entry online for the book, shown below, which is my first and last effort of academic publishing.

The final work was a Magnificat by Vivanco, the same composer who opened the program (who I am not familiar with but, again, I SHOULD get to know).  Though the choir was not as explicitly split in half like the opening piece, there was much alternating of smaller groups of voices singing subtle lines with the entire choir singing more forceful texts. The setting of the lines of text also alternated between choral settings and chanted lines by the two tenors together, which left the final line "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen" as a simple chant, which, though I would like to have heard the composer's choral treatment of text, served to close the concert in elegant simplicity.

The ensemble was fantastic.  Some members had been singing with Peter Phillps for thirty or forty years, some for three or four.  The quality of voices was clean and resonant, with soaring sopranos, solid altos, clear but not strident tenors, and rich yet not ponderous basses.  Singers sometimes interacted with each other for paired entrances as, well, I hate to say it, Philips is not the clearest of conductors (I'm being gentle yet still catty.), as I can attest having sung a concert under his direction with the Woodley Ensemble a couple decades ago (I ran across a concert flyer for the performance a few weeks ago, shown below).  Philips has described the ensemble's success in program notes I read somewhere as being the result of hiring superb singers and performing superb music.  Though the resonant venue, the West Court of the National Gallery, can be a challenging place for performing music, it was perfect for most of the music, most of which was intended for performance in resonant sacred spaces, so the slowly changing chords spun in the space without confusion.

I truly enjoyed the concert, though my enjoyment was sometimes tainted by what would best be described as nostalgic jealousy.  For a number of years I was rather fortunate to sing music like the today's program on a regular basis,  Over time my voice declined at the same time other strong singers joined the ranks of DC's choral scene and I started chasing other, non-musical, interests.  But these folks were fantastic.  And hearing such music live still provides some of the same exhilaration that I found performing it, especially when it's sung by the Tallis Scholars.