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Reviewer: Jim
Svejda Fortunately, The 100 Years’ War is one of those man-made catastrophes that sounds much worse than it actually was. (With “Holy Roman Empire” it’s also a misnomer, having dragged on for 116 years.) Still, the estimated death toll of history’s longest war was about 3.5 million, marginally less that the 3.8 million that perished in the Second Congo War (1998-2002) and considerably less than the 4.2 million that fell in Vietnam. And, as with the Vietnam War, most of the famous battles in the Hundred Years—Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt—were won by the ultimate loser, the English.
The principal focus of this enthralling album is the music written around the time of Henry V (1386–1422), England’s great warrior king whose resemblance to Shakespeare’s Prince Hal was purely coincidental, a man perhaps best summed up by one student of the period as “a dour fanatic obsessed with religion and his property rights.” Fortunately for Henry, he maintained a huge retinue on his campaigns in France, including a complete and fully functioning liturgical and musical chapel. Not surprisingly, the most famous musical souvenirs of that seemingly endless war are the two carols closely associated with Henry and Agincourt: Anglia tibi turbidas (England, hope for light) and Deo Gracias Anglia (Thanks to God, England, for the Victory), the celebrated Agincourt Carol that became the “Over There” of The Hundred Years’ War. The Binchois Consort perform them both with an almost proprietary pride—not surprisingly, given its previous Hyperion album (67868) Music for Henry V and the House of Lancaster—together with its customarily flawless blend, intonation, and diction. (Curiously, the pronunciation in the Agincourt Carol is an odd blend of Middle and modern English, perhaps as an aid to people not following along with the text.)
At the heart of the album is music by the two most significant English composers of the early 15th century, Leonel Power (d. 1445) and John Dunstaple (c. 1390–1453), including extended fragments—18:41—of the Missa Da gaudiorum premia that Dunstaple possibly wrote for the French Coronation of Henry VI in 1431 (his English Coronation took place when the only son of Henry V was nine months old in 1422, following his father’s sudden death at the age of 36). The performance perfectly captures both the serenity and ecstasy of the music, as do the versions of Dunstaple’s settings of Veni Sancte Spiritus and Veni creator Spiritus which may have been written for the same occasion (thought Kirkman, in his elegant and informative notes, suggests the evidence for this is not exactly iron-clad).
Leonel Power is represented by a pair of movements from a Mass written in honor of Thomas à Becket, one of the House of Lancaster’s most carefully cultivated household saints. (Was the irony lost on anyone that a dynasty that began with the murder of Richard II should have had a special feeling for an Archbishop murdered on the orders—or with, at very least, the tacit approval—of Henry II?) Power’s arresting Gloria ‘Ad Thome memoriam’ and even more stunning Credo ‘Opem nobis, o Thoma’—whose rhythmic vitality and textural variety make it one of the gems of the collection—are interwoven with a pair of anonymous 14th-century motets which are very nearly as gripping. In fact, throughout, the anonymous pieces almost serve as an eloquent Greek chorus to the works written by the professionals, and somehow manage to sum up the spirit of the age with even greater immediacy, as in the exquisite Kyrie … Domine miserere—Ab inimicis nostris with which the album concludes.
For anyone
with an interest in the period—especially admirers of the Shakespeare
histories—early English sacred music, or those who are simply curious as to
how such music ought to be performed, this is one to cherish. | |
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