A very nice review on our last concert of the season. Thanks to David Hawley of the St. Paul Pioneer Press who also acknowledged the fact that he could not stay for the 2nd half of the performance due to a deadline.
Palestrina, composer
Legend has it that Palestrina, perhaps the most-recognized composer before Bach, dissuaded the 16th century Council of Trent from banning polyphony in church music by composing a six-voice Mass that was reverent and clear and — well, ethereal.
The Mass in question was Missa Papae Marcelli, dedicated to Pope Marcellus, a short-reigning pontiff (less than a month in 1555) who nonetheless is remembered for reprimanding the choir at St. Peter’s for what the Council of Trent later labeled as “impure or lascivious” elements of liturgy. Well, most musicologists debunk this story.
Even so, the Renaissance choral music of the Counter-Reformation — and, of course, of Palestrina — is the subject of a sublime series of concerts being given this weekend by St. Paul’s professional chamber choir, the Rose Ensemble, and a smaller British singing ensemble, Voces8.
To sit through an entire concert of sacred music from this period, especially when it is incomparably performed, is to be wrapped in an embrace. The different vocal parts may number six, eight, 12 or more, but the overarching style is smoothly curved, with generally stepwise melodic lines, regular rhythms and uncomplicated-sounding counterpoint. The effect is utter surety and serenity.
Instead of offering comparisons and contrasts, the Rose Ensemble and Voces8 combine for most of the concert — with the exception of short opening numbers by each group. I suspect the two groups have specific vocal characteristics when doing their own repertoire but together they form a formidably precise choir of 21 voices.
The program includes works by Palestrina and a number of his contemporaries, including the more dramatic Giovanni Gabrieli, Gregorio Allegri, Tomas-Luis de Victoria (a Spaniard, but still second only to Palestrina in the Roman school) and Tomaso Graziani.
Also on the program is a work by the important transition composer, Claudio Monteverdi, who would bring Italy into the Baroque era. Unfortunately, a news deadline prevented me from hearing Monteverdi’s “Cantate Domino” and some other works at the tail end of the concert.
The program also included two all-female performances of plainchant, the basis for most of the more than 100 Masses that Palestrina wrote. To hear the beauty of these single-line melodies is to experience an otherworldly beauty that reaches back nearly a thousand years.
If you would like to hear one of the chants sung by the women of The Rose Ensemble, click here: Os justi