York Early Music Festival 2022
Every summer the National Centre for Early Music brings together musicians from all over the world for a week of celebration of the pre-classical genres. I spent four days there. Here are some impressions:
La Vaghezza, Sculpting the Fabric
Brilliant group of young Mediterranean instrumentalists playing music from 16th & 17th centuries. Their name means literally “vagueness” but in Renaissance days was an aesthetic concept: something indefinable to be striven for. Their playing had just that: slow passages had a sense of seeking, up-tempo moments a feeling of reaching into unfamiliar heights. The items they played were all new to me, though some composers’ names rang a bell. The players’ artistry allowed these complex pieces to sing to us, to touch us across the centuries.
Profeti della Quinta, Lamento d’Arianna
This group won the NCEM competition 11 years ago where we saw them performing a program of work by the Jewish composer Salamone Rossi, a collaborator of Monteverdi’s. Now they sang a piece from that program as their encore. An unusual group themselves, they are a quintet of voices, plus a theorbo player who provides accompaniment and here and there a solo. Mostly Israeli, they are now based in Switzerland, performing a repertoire from the Italian Renaissance. And performing at the highest level. The star, if there is one in this all-round excellent ensemble, is the main countertenor, Doron Schleifer; his voice has a sweet sadness that penetrates the heart. In contrast, the musical director Elam Rotem’s patter to the audience: a flow of dark Jewish humour pointing up the elements of morbidity and frustrated love in the songs.
York University Baroque Ensemble, Mannheim travels to Fife
A set of 18th century pieces, mostly by less well-known composers. The ensemble, mostly just out of their teens, deserve congratulations for their skill in playing these demanding works. Strings dominate and it’s a bigger band than we usually see for the period, 25 or thereabouts. Highlights: the opener by the Earl of Kelly brought to us a rousing joie de vivre. The traditional song Farewell to Lochaber, arranged by J C Bach, offered a melancholic contrast to the rest of the programme’s positive mood, sung with clarity of diction and sincerity of feeling by Edwin Lambert. They rounded off the concert with Mozart’s 1st Symphony which he wrote when he was at least 10 years younger than any of these youthful musicians; this brought yet more instruments, especially horns, onto the platform to enrich the sound. It’s often said that in his early works the Wunderkind was only following the general fashion. But in this context at least, the Mozart piece stands out for its complex sound and creative invention. The programme’s energiser is Lucy Russell who plays first violin as well as directing with vigour. Almost a pity we couldn’t watch her face, but the dancing of her hair was expressive in itself.
Gabrieli Consort, A Venetian Coronation 1595
It began with quiet notes on the organ, before a feast of vision and sound as the singers entered through the rood screen and spread out along their platform; then sounding cornets outside the main door heralded the entry of the brass players who paraded in slow march down the aisle, led by a drummer whose intricate finger work filled the grand acoustic of York Minster like an advancing thunderstorm. A brilliant opening, but also a hard act to follow. For the remainder we watched the redistribution of the black-clad musicians choreographed like moves of solitaire; musically we had superb solos and resonant choral work interspersed with chanting of text. Although after a time I began to miss the dramatic impact of the opening, all remained majestic, uplifting, sublime.
Yorkshire Baroque soloists, Bach’s Other Leipzig
Some faces already familiar from the Baroque Ensemble the day before. The first item was suitably “other”, being in Latin when Bach was an ardent Protestant. The mood was joyous delight in religious faith. Then the Violin Concerto immersed us in melancholy in a minor key. Here Lucy Russell, first violin, brought a different aspect to what we had heard and seen of her the previous day: tenderness, exquisite sadness, especially in the slow movement. The finale was again an “other” Bach from the high seriousness we know: the Coffee Cantata is a piece of comic theatre in cantata form, while allowing no let-up in the virtuosity required to play the music. Mhairi Lawson brought extra charm and mime skill to the role of the coffee addict. Outstanding among the four excellent soloists was Frederick Long, bass, with his ease of delivery in complex music and crystalline pronunciation of Latin and German. Rosie Moon, as on the previous day, made lively attack on antique versions of the double bass.
Voces Suaves, Schütz in Italy
Highly cosmopolitan singing group based in Switzerland. Schütz, like Handel after him, served an apprenticeship in Italy where he wrote a swathe of madrigals, tuneful and sweet to the ear. Items by Gabrieli revealed that he could do secular as well as sacred music with great skill. The line-up was different for each song, creating friendly interactions between the singers. Some pieces were also accompanied on theorbo. Unfortunately, the two theorbo solos by Kapsberger were a shade too subtle for me to appreciate. The richest element in the programme was the set by Monteverdi. His genius brought the madrigal form to another level with dialogue and interplay hinting at the composer’s ground-breaking move into opera.
York Minister (Vincent Guy)
It says something of the vastness of the European musical heritage that, after three days of this festival, the Bach Violin Concerto was the first piece that I was familiar with. And apart from lots of other listening, I have been coming to the York event for more than a decade. 2022 has been a stand-out year.
Cover photo: Profeti della Quinta (Mel et Lac)
