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Listening to this recital I am reminded of a garbled quotation misattributed to Paul Klee, describing drawing as ‘taking a line on a walk’; one guesses that artistically minded Renaissance musicians might have regarded their craft in much the same way. The lines being taken for a walk are monophonic chants and hymns sacred and secular, with special emphasis on their Danish incarnations, in deference to Musica Ficta’s nationality. (I recently reviewed an anthology from WeserRenaissance of Mogens Pedersøn’s Pratum spirituale, some of which appears here.) Individual selections are short and the recital moves through its paces fluently, alternating monophony (always delivered by a soloist), vocal polyphony, and numbers for organ that refresh the ear marvellously. Logically, the original tunes and their derivatives are grouped into sets. Towards the end, the Danish language comes increasingly to the fore. My favourite sets are the one devoted to ‘Maria zart’, a tune rich with possibility, which all the performers join in, and the Lutheran set that follows. It’s a remarkably well-constructed programme. Where so often monophony gives the impression of being included for purely programmatic or didactic purposes, and at worst sounds ‘phoned in’, here it is essential, coherently integrated, and sung with real purpose, allowing one to savour the vocal quality of the individual singers. Musica Ficta are bright and focused but with a warm centre; they are at their best in the more lightly scored pieces but the changes of scoring are so frequent that the virtues of the programme transfer themselves to the details of the performances. It’s a very absorbing, instructive take on a familiar concept. The booklet neither contains translations nor gives the ensembl’s membership. |
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