Big Thoughts

History reserves an important place for composers who have left a monumental legacy. Bach’s cantata cycles and Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs are good examples. Among Renaissance composers, both William Byrd and Heinrich Isaac fit that bill well. Byrd, with his Gradualia, and Isaac, with his Choralis Constantinus, provided music for an entire year of the Catholic Mass’ proper prayers (the ones with variable wording). Isaac’s commission to provide such a cycle for the cathedral chapter in Konstanz (Constance, Switzerland), arrived in 1508, exactly 500 years ago. The anniversary afforded us the good fortune to hear some of this music in performance by AVE (the Artists’ Vocal Ensemble) and the Whole Noyse instrumental consort on Saturday, at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley. And good fortune it was. Recordings from this vast cycle are hard to come by, much less concerts. Performers are undoubtedly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material contained in Isaac’s three posthumously published collections. The Choralis has long survived on reputation alone.

Photo by H. Tran

I was surprised to discover that, despite the significance of the anniversary year, only one Introit and Communion from the Choralis were included in the program. Instead, Music Director Jonathan Dimmock chose to celebrate Isaac’s commission in context, by bringing together a variety of works to approximate a Mass from 1508. This meant including a setting of the Mass Ordinary (the invariant prayers, like the Kyrie eleison and the Sanctus), for which portions of Isaac’s imposing six-voice Missa Virgo Prudentissima (Mass of the most wise virgin) were chosen.

In Josquin’s Shadow

And rather than give the entire show over to Isaac, AVE matched his works with an almost equal number by a more famous contemporary, Josquin des Prez, tackling some of Josquin’s weightiest motets in the process, including Memor esto verbi tui (Remember your words to your servant), Planxit autem David (Then David chanted an elegy), and the six-voice Pater noster. The Whole Noyse added instrumental versions of In illo tempore (In this time), In te, Domine, speravi (In you, Lord, we have hope), joined by alto Karen Clark, and the song Petite Camusette (Little snub-nose). Plainsong and the medieval abbess Hildegard von Bingen’s responsory, Ave Maria, o auctrix vite (Hail Mary, author of life), offered moments of repose from the polyphonic complexities of the program. AVE sounded especially strong in the opening piece, Isaac’s Reminiscere miserationum tuarum (Remember thy pity). This was a subdued way to start the evening, but Isaac’s somber setting of the Introit would have been absolutely in keeping with its use on the second Sunday of Lent. AVE brought the requisite gravity to this penitential work, with its supplication rendered in stately, measured declamation. The Whole Noyse took over next with Josquin’s In illo tempore. This was a rocky start for the ensemble, as the cornetts struggled to stay in tune with the three sackbuts and curtal (a progenitor of the modern bassoon). Isaac’s setting of the Kyrie then provided an opportunity for AVE and the Whole Noyse to join forces in novel ways. The sectional divisions reinforced by the rhetorical structure were further clarified by alternating voices alone with instrumental doubling of the vocal parts, bringing ceremonial dignity to Isaac’s work. Josquin’s Memor esto verbi tui was an opportunity to compare the rhetorical power of these two composers back to back. Heinrich Glarean, the 16th-century Swiss theoretician, tells us that Josquin wrote this motet for Louis XII, who had promised him a benefice and then forgotten about it. Josquin made his message, “Remember your words to your servant,” clear through frequent and strict divisions of the text into paired voices, often in canon. AVE used this opportunity to showcase the prodigious skills of its individual singers. While In illo tempore seemed more of a warm-up for the Whole Noyse, the addition of alto Karen Clark to their group inspired them to pay much more attention to phrasing in Josquin’s In te, Domine, speravi. Unfortunately, the presence of only one singer demonstrated the necessity for at least one more to add variety at points of closure. Clark’s voice rising above the instrumental parts brought surprising redundancy to Josquin’s piece, which would undoubtedly have felt more nuanced with an additional voice part.

Choral Lapses

Clark provided the highlight of the evening later in the program. As the soloist in Hildegard’s Ave Maria, she gave a passionate performance, with a vocal dynamism that darted and hovered effortlessly across Hildegard’s athletic writing, lending the work extraordinary vitality. When she was joined by the choir, they had trouble keeping up with her. Unfortunately, this was only one among many instances demonstrating that AVE had overextended its reach. Some works seemed underrehearsed. Coordination among the singers, especially in the numerous places where voices alternate in smaller groups — a hallmark of mid-Renaissance style — often left the group exposed. This was a particular issue in the elided cadences that dovetail the three opening duets in Virgo Prudentissima. I wondered if part of the problem was the wide spacing of the singers onstage. While the physical space highlighted the frequent paired exchanges among the voices, it seemed to work against the group when they all needed to come together, as, for example, in the integration of high and low voices in Isaac’s Sanctus or among the group as a whole in Josquin’s Pater noster. The ensemble compensated for some of these difficulties by slowing down the tempos, while Dimmock emphasized the fluid unfolding of the pieces over the rhythmic thrust of the counterpoint. A program as ambitious as this is certainly to be applauded. The Bay Area is lucky to have local groups such as AVE and the Whole Noyse who are willing to present such music in concert. These are among the most difficult works of Isaac and Josquin to digest. Often they can seem ponderous and aloof, making tight, confident ensemble work all the more essential. Only then can performers make expressive the rhythmically and contrapuntally prickly textures, frequent austerity of expression, and intellectual density of these works, and present them free from any superficial pedantry.