AVE MARIS STELLA:
MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE AGES AND RENAISSANCE
CD réf. FCE 209/504
THE
ART OF MUSIC
Nicki Crush (soprano), Ria Favoreel (mezzo), Marita Thomas
(alto)
Mick Swithinbank (tenor & direction)
Jim Foulkes (baritone) & Edward Seymour (bass)
1. Anonymous: There is no rose of such
virtue
2. Plainchant: Puer natus est
3. Alexander Utendal (1535-1574): Adesto dolori meo, Deus
4. Guillaume Dufay (1400-1474): Conditor alme siderum
5. O divina virgo (lauda)
6. Antoine Brumel (1475-1520): O crux, ave, spes unica
7. Plainchant: Victimae paschali
8. John Dunstaple (1385-1453): Ave maris stella
9. Charles d'Helfer (early 17th century): Sanctus / Pie
Jesu
10. Antoine Brumel: Dies irae
11. Johannes Ockeghem (1420-1497): Mort, tu as navré
de ton dart
12. Josquin Desprez (1440-1521): Nymphes des bois
13. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179): O frondens virga
14. Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611): Ave Maria
15. Josquin Desprez: Tu solus qui facit mirabilia
16. David Peebles (1510-1579): Si quis diligit me
17. * John Taverner (1490-1545): Quemadmodum
18. * Thomas Tallis (1505-1585): Videte miraculum
19. * Thomas Tallis: Te lucis ante terminum
* with Teija Immonen
The Art of Music
takes its name from the title of an anonymous treatise on musical theory
written in Scotland in the late 16th century. The group was set up in 1993
by Eric Hartley with the principal aim of performing English and Scottish
renaissance church music. This still remains at the core of the group's
repertoire, and is represented on this disc by Tallis, Peebles and Taverner.
In addition, however, the concerts of recent years have branched out both
geographically, to include works from mainland Europe, and chronologically,
into the Middle Ages.
***
'Ave Maris Stella' (Hail, star of the sea) is the title
of a plainsong hymn dating from no later than the 9th century, which clearly
enjoyed great popularity throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. It must
have owed its appeal to a combination of factors: its pleasing melody,
the devotion it expresses to the Virgin Mary and its poetic imagery. Ironically,
the image of Mary as the star of the sea, which the poet took as his starting
point, may have previously originated through a scribe's error, 'stilla'
becoming 'stella'. The idea of Mary as 'maris stilla' - one drop in the
ocean of humanity, albeit one uniquely chosen - is attractive enough, yet
'maris stella' possesses a different resonance, partly because it is a
visual image and cannot so readily be reduced logically to any abstract
notion.
Dunstaple was one of many composers who adapted this ancient hymn. His
approach, a common one in his day, was to incorporate a decorated version
of the plainsong melody in his setting - in this case in the top line -
while leaving alternate verses to be sung to the original plainsong unadorned
and unaccompanied. The Dufay piece applies the same procedure to another
plainsong hymn, and Brumel, although writing later, adopted a rather similar
technique in his Dies Irae.
In the Middle Ages, the rose garden was a symbol of virginity, and the
rose was therefore another of the many images of the Virgin Mary, as in
the medieval Christmas carol 'There is no rose of such virtue' which opens
this disk. Hildegard, on the other hand, addresses her as 'frondens virga'
- a flourishing branch of the tree of Jesse (referring to the family tree
through which Mary traced her lineage back to him).
Also addressed to the Virgin are 'Ave Maria', Victoria's setting of
the Angel Gabriel's words at the Annunciation, and the anonymous lauda
'O divina virgo'. This is in Italian, and would have been sung not by the
church's regular singers but by devout laymen who formed societies for
this purpose.
The pieces on this disk are drawn from four concert programmes dating
from October 1998 to October 1999, one of which had the title 'Laments
and Requiems'. It included the requiem-mass movements by Brumel and the
little-known 17th century Lorraine composer Charles d'Helfer which are
featured here, as well as Ockeghem's lament on the death of Binchois (c.
1460) and Josquin's lament on the death of Ockeghem (c. 1497), both of
which are heart-felt settings of French poems sung to the accompaniment
of Latin texts from the requiem mass. The words make it clear that these
widely admired composers whom the world has lost are irreplaceable; at
the same time, these settings and those from the requiem mass serve to
remind us of our own mortality and perhaps, through some mysterious process,
to reconcile us to it in some degree.
'Si quis diliget me' by Peebles was one of the first pieces learned
by The Art of Music in its early days under the directorship of Eric Hartley.
While the tenor sustains the notes of a passage of plainsong drawn out
to such vast length that time almost seems to stand still, the other parts
create slowly changing harmonies, into which small fragments of faster,
but unfailingly calm, melody are woven. This piece has always retained
a special place in the singers' affections, and the aim of presenting to
audiences such rarely performed gems as this is the whole reason for the
group's existence.
Previously released by The Art of Music: FROM
HILDEGARD TO GESUALDO
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