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BY DAVID MACLAINE
William
Byrd Festival with Richard Marlow and Cantores in Ecclesia |
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It's a hot night for a mass at St. Patrick's Church, the air still and stifling, but the pews are as full as at Easter or Christmas. Candles flicker, the words of greeting are intoned, and then, from above, comes the music. The voices spread and fill the space, overlapping and intertwining as the song of praise unfolds. Onward they pour into the Gloria, swelling to grandeur and rising as the text signals sins lifted away. The stations of the service go back more than a millennium, but the music that pours forth from the choir loft dates back a mere 400 years. You have to turn and crane your neck to see the man in the blue shirt moving his hands crisply and precisely, then his arms, broadly and vigorously, as he draws out the rich, fervent sounds. That man is Richard Marlow, director of music at Trinity College, Cambridge, who has come to Portland for a festival devoted to the music of William Byrd. By the time he's through, he'll have led the local ensemble Cantores in Ecclesia through all three of Byrd's masses, each in its full and proper liturgical setting. Along with the music, there will be a lecture by Byrd authority and Stanford professor William Mahrt on the composer's life and sacred music (10:30 am Saturday at St. Patrick's, tickets $6), and Sunday night the festival will conclude with a public concert. So who is this William Byrd, and why should we care about his music? It's a question more than a few seasoned concert-goers might ask. Anyone who knows anything about serious music will recognize Bach, Handel, Mozart and Beethoven, the most famous composers of the century-and-a-quarter that began in 1700. But most classical fans would stumble if you asked for the names of four comparable composers of the age from 1475 to 1600; only the most serious fan of music for choir is likely to rattle off the names of Josquin and Palestrina, Lassus and Byrd. For a little more than a century, during the years when da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian poured out masterpieces in stone and on canvas, the art of music was also reaching heights never since surpassed. The great altar pieces and rich chapel ceilings throbbed to the sound of voices unsupported by instruments, weaving intricate, beautiful and profound patterns in polyphony. In these years the dominant forms were the motet, a short selection of sacred text suitable for multi-voiced song, and the mass. Three short pieces for organ are the only instrumental works on the program, short measure for a composer who, like Bach and Beethoven, was the dominant keyboard composer of his day. Byrd's large-scale forays into instrumental composition--he also composed trailblazing works for viol consort--set him apart from the other great Renaissance composers, and his output of music for English texts, from the consort songs and anthems to his setting of a full Anglican service, show a versatility that, of his peers, only Lassus can approach. If Byrd were better known, this festival would probably need a more precise name, say The Sacred Heart of William Byrd. Regardless of the name, performing Byrd is a job at which Marlow and the Cantores can be expected to excel. Each Saturday at St. Patrick's, under the direction of its regular director, Dean Applegate, Cantores sing the Latin mass, and over the years they've delved deeply into the Renaissance repertoire. Their skill has paid off in international recognition: Last year they won gold medals in all three categories at the fifth International Palestrina Competition in Rome. Guest director Marlow has amassed an impressive discography with the Choir of Trinity College, and he speaks of Byrd's music with the insight and perspective of an accomplished musician. Marlow is especially impressed with the mastery of Byrd's late collection of music for the Catholic service, the Gradualia, which he compares to the late quartets of Beethoven or to Bach's Art of the Fugue, works of full maturity stripped down to bare essentials, so concise that not a note could be altered. Sunday's concert will offer an assortment of Byrd's earlier motets--lavish in celebration, intense and profuse when texts turn to mourning--and will move from these to the spare late works of devotion. In the course of the concert the choir will offer the Agnus Dei section from each of the masses, with the organ interludes clearing the palate before each of these visits to the Lamb of God. As the concert moves from the earlier motets, it will pass through some of the most masterful selections from the Gradualia, whose purity and focus should profit from the contrast. A more lavish motet will conclude the festivities, but the earlier glimpses into the soul of an aging master of music--his wisdom in full service of his faith--are most likely to resonate after the joyful noise has passed away.
originally published September 2, 1998 |
