WE KNOW nothing about Marietta Pugi, except that she lived in Florence, and some time before 1510 she was given a book of eight songs, to which she added throughout her life.
This was the starting point for Musica Antica Rotherhithe’s programme, “Death’s Great Captain”, in Holy Trinity, Rotherhithe, last month. This comprised sacred and secular music that Marietta and her family might have performed themselves, or heard outside the home.
Four well-matched singers, the mezzo-soprano Camilla Seale, the director and tenor Oliver Doyle, the countertenor Tristram Cook, and the bass Joachim Sabbat, with Sarah Small and Harry Buckoke on viole da gamba, blended beautifully together in Agricola’s “Fortuna Desperata”, a sad song railing at Fate. Countertenor and lute then gave us Ockeghem’s “Ma Bouche Rit”, the tune underpinning the next item, Martini’s Missa Ma Bouche Rit, possibly heard in full for the first time since the 15th century.
Heinrich Isaac’s motet for the death of Lorenzo de Medici, Quis Dabit was followed by the plainchant Requiem Aeternam and Johannes Ciconia’s Con Lagrime, a lament for a dead colleague, with the ever-versatile Doyle on a Clavicymbalum — an early harpsichord. Lute transcriptions of religious music were common for home use and Augustin Cornwall-Irving gave us an anonymous introit and Kyrie from 1474.
On the last night of Carnevale, wagons full of singers would tour the streets singing moral songs to get people in the mood for Lent. We had five of the 60 verses of “Il Gran Capitano della Morte”, with Oliver Doyle clear and expressive as the Living, and Joachim Sabbat as a surprisingly lively Death.
But life in Renaissance Florence wasn’t all gloom. The singers brought clarity and intimacy to a frivolous frotola (partsong) “Poi Che’l Ciel”, before ending with Josquin des Prez’s “Nimphes, nappés”, a memento mori, followed with rapt attention by a capacity audience in the semi-darkness of a candlelit church.
SIGLO DE ORO started out as a student ensemble under their director, Patrick Allies, but their amateur days are long behind them. The first concert of their three-concert residency at the Wigmore Hall last month, “Renaissance Reflections”, celebrated a decade of professional music-making with Tudor works to which the ensemble are particularly close.
At the programme’s heart were four pieces commissioned by the group, three to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Sheppard, active under three Tudor monarchs, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. Sheppards work was juxtaposed with settings of the same text by young composers.
Annika DerksenThe instrumentalists in Holy Trinity, Rotherhithe
The major work was Sheppard’s 20-minute motet Media Vita, an antiphon for the Nunc Dimittis at compline from the Third Sunday in Lent to Passion Sunday, prefaced here by his own Nunc Dimittis setting. The austere opening words, “Media vita in morte sumus”, sung by tenor and bass, blending into one voice, blossomed into six parts with repeated sections giving it an almost obsessive quality. The use of just four upper voices added poignancy to “Qui cognoscis”, the plea for mercy to God who knows the secrets of our hearts. Kerensa Briggs’s Media Vita rather paled by comparison.
Derri Joseph Lewis’s O Nata Lux echoes the mysterious, shimmering harmonies of Thomas Tallis’s work, opening with a wordless section before the text gradually appears, a repeated “of light” creating a glittering texture.
The three choirs of Ben Rowarth’s Libera Nos give the piece a massive, cinematic feel, as the text slowly pays out: a contrast to Sheppard’s more modest offering, while echoing his imitative style and penchant for harmonic clashes. Sheppard’s own Lord’s Prayer for the reformed Church, with its characteristic overlapping lyrics climaxing in “deliver us from evil”, showed his ability to set English as well. Owain Parks’s more florid account drove insistently to a final “and always so be it”, which referenced Renaissance polyphony.
Roderick Williams’s Ave Verum Corpus Reimagined is on its way to becoming a repertoire staple. The piece draws on the memories of its composer as a former boy chorister at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, where Byrd’s music would reverberate around the building. Byrd’s famous communion motet is taken apart and reassembled in a series of delightful dissonances.
The singing displayed all the qualities that distinguish this group. The tone had a golden glow, with firmly marked entries and individual lines given due prominence when necessary, blending into a rich and satisfying whole.