Tage Alter Musik – Almanach 2018

instrumental Sinfonia, with its rousing trom- bone opening theme. If I were a descendant of the inventor of printing, I would be a bit upset that, despite the reason for its compo- sition, there is nothing in the text to suggest any link with printing. God gets all the ku- dos with this hymn of praise, culminating in the famed chorale, Nun danket alle Gott . The vocal soloists were soprano Miriam Alexan- dra, Leon Degat (a Domspatzen boy treble), and tenor Werner Güra, all three excellent. Key instrumental moments came fromVin- cenzo Casale, clarinet, Lorenzo Alpert, bas- soon, and Julia Brana, flute. Roland Büchner conducted with conviction and with impres- sively restrained style. The Friday late night (10.45) concert fea- tured the British vocal ensemble alamire and the english cornett & sackbut ensem- ble, directed by David skinner , with their programme the spy’s choirbook – Petrus alamire & the court of henry viii (in the Schottenkirche St. Jakob, with its extraordi- nary carved porch). Petrus Alamire (c1470– 1536 – the name is based on the solfege syl- lables la-mi-re ) built a career in several Eu- ropean courts as a music copyist, merchant, diplomat – and a spy for England’s Henry VIII. The concert focused on music from the beautifully illustrated choral book (British Museum: Royal MS 8.g.vii ), presented by Petrus Alamire to Henry VIII and his wife Catherine of Aragon in 1516. Originally written for the French Louis XII and his wife, the words were changed for Henry and Catherine. The theme is generally of mourn- ing and birth – a bit of an issue for Henry at the time. The works are anonymous in the book, but concordances with other sources have revealed the names of many of the composers, including de la Rue, Mouton, Strus, Févin and Fayrfax. Some seem in- tended for instruments alone, and several were sung together with cornets and sack- buts, sometimes as a complete consort, or as a single instrument taking one of the poly- phonic lines. The music was frequently rather dense in texture, and a succession of 17 such pieces was not an easy listen even for the most ded- icated follower of late-night Renaissance polyphony. The ten singers were on good form as were the four instrumentalists, play- ing cornetts, pommer, schalmai and tenor trombones. Amongst the vocal highlights was de Therache’s Verbun bonum et suave with its sequence of richly textured two-part passages. An anonymous Recordamini quo- modo praedixit filium was an attractive in- strumental piece. But for me, however pro- fessional the performers were, somehow the concert somehow lacked what it would take to lift it above mere professional efficiency. One curiosity was that the choir’s starting notes, even for a capella pieces, came from a tenor trombone rather than a discrete hum from the conductor. David Skinner’s overly flamboyant conducting style was an un- wanted distraction, seemingly focussed on drawing attention to himself rather than to the music or the musicians. Perhaps it was telling that he took all the audience’s ap- plause for himself, with little more than a nod to the musicians behind him, who were not even invited to take a bow. Saturday 19 May Saturday’s five concerts started back in the Schottenkirche (11am) with the concert Breathtaking – voice and zinc musically intertwined given by soprano hana Blažíková and a small group of instrumen- talists (two violins, viola da gamba, organ, harpsichord, and lute) led by cornettist Bruce Dickey . The zinc (or cornett) has a sound very similar to the human voice, to the extent that I once described a young singer as a ‘cornett on legs’. The same de- scription could be applied here with Hana Blažíková’s crystal clear and focused sound, perfect intonation, vibrato-free voice, and sensitive use of ornaments. The programme included pieces by Cazzati, Marini, Merula, andrewbensonwilson.org 7 Alamire & The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, Leitung: David Skinner