Friends

James Macmillan
Seven Last Words from the Cross
Seven Last Words from the Cross (1993); On the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin (1997); Te Deum (2001)
Polyphony, Britten Sinfonia, Stephen Layton (Hyperion)
Posted 14 April 2006.

Given that the Western world in the twentieth century was growing progressively more irreligious, and that this trend was particularly pronounced in the arts, it is perhaps surprising that so much first-rate sacred music was written.  Igor Stravinsky and Benjamin Britten, two of the very finest composers of the past hundred years, both made substantial contributions to the sacred music tradition, and both out of genuine religious faith.  Moreover, in the last forty years the number of composers devoting their talents to sacred music seems to have been increasing, prominent among them the so-called "holy minimalists": Arvo Part, Henryk Gorecki, and (the distractingly pompous) John Tavener.  These men have tended to write music that is accessible and beautiful, but also fairly uniformly solemn, slow, and austere.

Into the picture steps the young Scottish composer James Macmillan.  His music, too, is rooted in personal devotion -- he is a lay Dominican -- but there is nothing sentimental or gentle about it.  His musical language is aggressive, frequently dissonant, and the fruit of an incisive musical intelligence.  This is not to say that his music is not approachable, because it certainly is, but it is not comfortable, and will not appeal to those who take their music like warm milk.

Take, for example, the opening section of his terrific cycle Seven Last Words from the Cross.  The orchestra begins quietly in layered chords and, gradually increasing in volume, a fugal counterpoint in women's voices arises out of the texture: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.  As this interplay soars higher, an agitated men's chorus enters with a Latin text from the Palm Sunday liturgy, rising to a dissonant exclamation: Rex Israel!  The orchestral foundation, grown louder, spawns a wild sawtooth solo violin line that cuts jaggedly through the texture, now accompained by the women's voices rapidly intoning a Tenebrae text for Good Friday.  At its climax the music is a well-controlled chaos of colour, rhythm, and language.  The air slowly clears, the strings swelling sweetly, until all that remains is the patter of the women's voices in monotone: They placed me in a wasteland of desolation, and all the earth mourned for me.  It's a bracing, thrilling piece of music.

This opening to Seven Last Words sets the stage for what is to follow.  In general, the music is an explosive mixture of sharp orchestral attacks, bold dissonance, and soaring soprano voices, with interludes of great lyrical beauty.  Though the texts center around the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross, Macmillan has effectively embellished them with texts from the Holy Week liturgy.  Behind it all is the voice of an unmistakingly passionate, and prodigiously talented composer.

Seven Last Words lasts about three-quarters of an hour in performance.  The disc is filled out by two lesser works, both also written quite recently.  They are fine works, but can't compete with the main event.  The choir is top-notch, coping admirably with their frequently challenging parts, and the sound is excellent.  This is a really superb disc.

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Olivier Messiaen
La Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur Jesus-Christ

Choeur et orchestre Philharmoniqe de Radio France, Chung
(Deutsche Grammophon, 2CD)

First exposure to the music of Olivier Messiaen usually provokes a strong reaction.  It is very...distinctive, and not to everyone's taste.  He was nothing if not a musical eccentric. The main elements of his style are: bird-song, slowed and transposed for instruments, and heard chirping out from every corner of the orchestra; extraordinarily complex palindromic rhythmic schemes; his peculiar musical modes, which he used instead of the traditional musical keys, and which were related to his synaesthesia; and vaulting ambition.  It is odd, in fact, that I enjoy his music so much, because on paper it would seem to be a poor match: his music is opulent, colourful, sensual, extravagant. I am rarely accused of being any of those.  My excuse is that I love Messiaen because he is joyful.

La Transfiguration is a major work for large orchestra and 100 voice chorus.  It also calls for virtuoso soloists on piano, clarinet, flute, cello, marimba, vibraphone, and xylophone. It is a bold, bright work, but highly ritualized and liturgical rather than dramatic. The musical texture has the choir singing huge homophonic block chords which change deliberately and slowly, punctuated occasionally by bird-song outbursts from the soloists. It is solemn without hinting at sorrow. Messiaen was a master of orchestral colour, and in a story that culminates in the heavenly bright light of the transfigured Christ, that gift is brilliantly evident. The texts, chosen by Messiaen and entirely in Latin, are drawn from St. Matthew's account of the Transfiguration, of course, but also from other passages of Scripture, liturgical texts, and even passages from the Summa Theologiae.

The performance here is outstanding.  The conductor Myung-Whun Chung worked closely with Messiaen before his death in 1992, and clearly has a good understanding of this strange but wonderful music.  More to the point, the engineering of the recording, so critical in Messiaen, is superb.  I would not recommend this recording to someone coming to Messiaen for the first time, but someone with a little experience would, I'm sure, enjoy it as much as I do. 

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In Paradisum: Music of Victoria and Palestrina
Hilliard Ensemble

(ECM New)
Posted 11 March 2006.

This is a very special recording. I have a large collection of recordings of Renaissance music, but few are as breathtaking and touching as this one. Even by the exalted standards of this great vocal quartet, it must be counted a triumph.

One often hears the music of Palestrina and Victoria referred to as the "grand style" of Renaissance music: serene, measured, and slightly impersonal. Not here. Here it is intimate, immensely moving, and seems to be a living thing. In this music each voice ventures out into the darkness, meets another, and rather than marching on to their preordained destinations, they seem to sense one another's presence. The attention and responsiveness of the singers is dazzling. There is, in fact, an element of tentativeness in these interpretations, as though the music is being improvised and negotiated on the spot. 

The austere, intimate beauty of the polyphonic pieces is only enhanced by having them interpolate between sections of Gregorian chant. The chant, too, is rendered with great care and feeling.

Though I think this one of the greatest recordings of the past decade, it passed quietly below the radar screen of award competitions when it was released in 2000. Perhaps it is just as well; this music will find its listeners. The Penguin Guide complains about the atmosphere of "doom and gloom", which is an embarrassing misapprehension on their part. The voices are swimming in the darkness, true enough, and that impression is uncannily portrayed. They are singing a funeral rite, true enough, and they would be remiss if they did not bring to the music an element of sadness. But the result, far from 'doom and gloom', is poignant and luminous.

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No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
Bob Dylan

(Sony, 2 CD)
Posted 2 November 2005.

In late September of this year, a four-hour documentary about the early career of Bob Dylan was released.  No Direction Home, directed by Martin Scorcese, recalls Dylan's career from his arrival in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s as an unknown folk-singer from Minnesota to the 1966 motorcycle accident that sent him, at the height of his creative powers and the pinnacle of his fame, into seclusion and extended creative silence.  It is compelling viewing for those, like myself, who have taken a special interest in Dylan's songs.

No Direction Home: The Soundtrack was issued simultaneously with the film.  Not a soundtrack in the conventional sense, this two-disc set gathers together previously unreleased material from the period covered by the film.  These cuts range from previously unreleased songs, including a home recording made when Dylan was just 18, and cover songs, such as a version of Woody Guthrie's 'This Land is Your Land' and the folk standard 'Man of Constant Sorrow', to live recordings and alternate studio takes of familiar songs.

The cuts are arranged chronologically so that, as in the film, we can follow Dylan's career as it unfolds.  It is a great story: a young man from the mid-West arrives in New York City with his guitar, begins singing folk standards in the coffee houses, discovers his own talent for song-writing, writes songs that become anthems for the civil rights movement of the 1960s, morphs unexpectedly from a social-conscience songsmith into a cryptic purveyor of hallucinogenic poetic whirlwinds, which winds, while stirring up a storm of controversy, nevertheless seem only to fan the flames of his own fame, until he is suddenly laid low by an accident, bringing it all, in a very real sense, to an end.

Any account of this period in Dylan's life has to grapple with one central issue: what was it that turned the simple strummer of 'Blowin' in the Wind' into the garrulous fabulist of 'Desolation Row'?  Just listening to the music it is hard to know, but the film has a suggestion.

Living and working in the left-wing intellectual hothouse of Greenwich Village, writing 'protest' songs like 'Masters of War', it was inevitable that Dylan would attract the attention of the cultural revolutionaries of his time (remember, this was in the idyllic days when one could condemn those who 'threaten my baby / unborn and unnamed' and still maintain left-wing credentials).  He began to sing at civil rights rallies, found his songs clamoured after, his star rising, and it didn't take long until he was being lauded as the 'conscience of his generation'.

This solemn title, Dylan says in an interview segment during the film, was a burden he was not prepared to bear, something to which he simply could not relate.  It seems, then, that he resolved to throw off the mantle that was being laid on his shoulders. 

And so, on a hot July night in 1965, he took the stage at the Newport Folk Festival with an electric guitar in hand, a rock 'n roll band behind him, and the first words out of his mouth said it all: 'I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.'  That now legendary set, the full fury of which is vividly captured in the film, lasted but fifteen minutes before Dylan walked off stage to a chorus of boos.  Clearly trembling at the irrevocability of what he had just done, Dylan retreated backstage where, we learn, he was approached by Joan Baez.  'Don't touch me!' he warned her, 'My hands are burning!'

And they were.  In a sense, Dylan burned himself in effigy that night, setting the torch to all the scripts that were being prepared for him, burning the bridges over which aspiring handlers might reach him.  After that night, things were not the same.

Of course, it took some time for everyone to get the message.  In the months that followed the Newport appearance, the star-making publicity machine continued to grind away.  His intransigence with the press during this period is the stuff of Dylan lore, and in the film we see first-hand how he tried to throw them off his back.
 

Or on another occasion:


This is comedy, of course, and we can see an impish delight flashing behind his eyes, but it is also serious, for the smoke-screening is a form of self-defence.  He knows that he needs to fight free.  How could he have known that this elliptical manner would only earn him a new legion of fans and that the battle would have to continue on another front?

So much for the film and the biographical background to the music: what of the music itself?  The first disc is devoted to the acoustic period, covering 1959 to early 1965.  Included are a few home recordings made in Minnesota, including a fine folk song 'I was Young when I left Home', which sounds as though it is as old as the hills, but was apparently written by Dylan himself, then just 20 years old.  But the highlight of this disc must be the incandescent live version of 'Chimes of Freedom', Dylan holding forth from the stage like a man filled with a god, 'a man', say the accompanying notes, 'with lightning in his pocket'. 

The bulk of the second disc is taken up with alternate takes from the celebrated trilogy of Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde, albums which track his metamorphosis from folk hero to whatever it was that he became.  Many of Dylan's greatest songs are here: 'Desolation Row', 'Ballad of a Thin Man', 'Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat'. These versions differ from the well-known album takes in various ways, and certainly it is interesting to hear the familiar songs dressed up in unusual clothing.  But after a few hearings I'm convinced that, having dressed them up in this way, the better part of wisdom was to not take them out.  In almost every case they seem inferior to the standard versions.  A notable exception is the sprawling 'Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again' which, rather than wallowing in the caustic, swampy blues of the familiar album cut (which I confess I have never liked), has been fitted instead with a jaunty dancing rhythm, complete with a humourous organ flourish to introduce each stanza.  This is quite appropriate.  After all, a lyric like


is either a word fraught with a terrible significance, or it's a hail from the borderland of jabberwocky.  I incline toward the latter interpretation, and the playful tone of this new version is most fitting.

My only real disappointment with these discs is that the great song 'Lay Down Your Weary Tune', which to my knowledge has never been released before but which played over the credits of the film, is not included on the album.  That's cruel.

The songs on these discs, then, are in a few cases outstanding, and in all cases enjoyable, but the real reason to be excited about No Direction Home is the film.  It reminds us that Dylan is an uncommonly gifted songwriter and a cultural figure of no slight importance. If we needed reminding.

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Bestiario de Cristo
Alia Musica

(Harmonia Mundi, 67:02)
Posted 30 October 2005.

Here is an intriguing disc that explores the world of religious symbolism in medieval Europe.  The bestiary was a medieval literary genre that was, on one hand, an encyclopedia of animal behaviour and, on the other hand, a devotional text.  After describing a particular animal's character, the author would proceed to draw several morals which could guide man in his own action. 

Some of the symbols explored on this disc are drawn directly from Scripture: the dove represents the Holy Spirit, the lamb Christ, and the serpent the devil.  But others are less familiar: the association of the pelican with Christ is based on the medieval belief that a pelican would pierce its breast in order to feed its chicks with blood. The dragon, on the other hand, which in medieval lore often guarded treasure, represented the virtues of vigilance and courage. The lion had a rich symbolism constructed on dubious grounds:


In some cases, it seems, the devotional aim got the better of the reporting.  Such texts provide a fascinating window into medieval culture.

I should say that if you were to listen to this disc without reading the accompanying booklet, little or none of this symbolism would be evident.  They are not actually singing a bestiary.  Rather, the repertoire consists of a variety of motets and conducti in which passing allegorical reference is made to this or that animal; the bestiaries of the period make explicit what is implicit in the musical texts.  

On purely musical terms, too, this disc pleases. What we hear are lively, full-blooded performances of this delightful music, most of which dates from the 13th century.  Alia Musica is a Spanish ensemble of singers (men and women) and players;  this is the first disc of their music that I have heard, and I have enjoyed it immensely.  The sound is immediate and rich, and the lavish booklet is both informative and beautifully produced.

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The Singing Club - Music of Purcell, Hume, etc.
The Hilliard Ensemble

(Harmonia Mundi, 54:39)
Posted 23 October 2005.

This is an inexpensive reissue of a recording that was originally made in the mid-1980s by the youthful Hilliard Ensemble.  The Hilliards have, of course, gone on to become one of the world's finest small vocal ensembles - they are certainly my personal favourites.  It is interesting, then, to hear how they sounded in the beginning.  Not surprisingly, they sounded great, even if the singing lacked the uncanny perfection of blend and balance that they have achieved in these latter days.

The repertoire here is surprisingly light-hearted: catches and 'glee' songs from 17th century England, based largely, to my ears, on popular song.  If one were to mix in a little raggedness, judiciously dispense some flat notes, and season with some slurred consonants - all three elements are entirely absent from the singing on this record, needless to say - then I can imagine these songs being sung over pints of ale in English country pubs.  In fact, according to the notes, that impression is exactly right, even if in some cases the composer has added several layers of musical sophistication to the popular song models.

The music ranges from simple harmonized folk ballads ('There were three ravens', 'Sweet and low') to stirring rounds ('Tis women makes us love') to rather difficult multi-texted songs ('The Singing Club'); the music is by a variety of composers, the best known of whom are Henry Purcell and Henry Lawes.  The texts range from the scurrilous ('Sir Walter enjoying his damsel') to lyrical excerpts from Shakespeare ('Sign no more ladies', 'Gather your rosebuds while you may').  Both texts and music have been well chosen.  Even if I wished from time to time that the singers would unbutton a little and knock a glass or two off the table, in the end this is a very enjoyable record.