Texte paru dans: / Appeared in:
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Cappella Pratensis here show an almost Trumpian need to push the boundaries and see how far they can get away with it. The fourth of their discs devoted to the choirbooks of ’s-Hertogenbosch devotes only four of its 14 tracks to music in those choirbooks. The argument, assembled in an erudite note by Grantley McDonald involving apparently substantial new documentation, is that any such institution had secular feasts at which all kinds of music would have been performed, written and unwritten. For this they work together with the Sollazzo Ensemble, directed by Anna Danilevskaia. Since both groups are currently at the very top of their form, the results are predictably stunning, even if much of the music is of limited quality.
In addition, they add in a ‘bonus track’ the famous Dutch actor and television personality Vincent Bijlo. How he comes in is a roundabout story. The Dutch musicologist Eric Jas identified the tune at the root of a Mass by Appenzeller as a melody with only a text opening (and otherwise a Dutch rhymed translation of a psalm text). On the basis of that text opening, the local poet and journalist Eric Alink wrote a new text and Marc Busnel devised a polyphonic arrangement. This is sung once through by Busnel and then later spoken (far more quickly) by Bijlo against a background of Busnel’s music played by Sollazzo.
For the rest, they sing beautifully in Mass music by Appenzeller and Vinders (including instrumental participation, which seems unlikely even in ’s-Hertogenbosch), give one track of improvised polyphony, and offer lovely performances of two contrasting songs by Compère (though the solo singers are not named anywhere). It is hard to see any logic in the programming here; but it is all great fun. |
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