In a period of abject political rectitude given the negative
outcome of the Senate’s vote on including witnesses and documents in the trial
to remove an impeached United States president from office, the February 7,
2020 opportunity to hear “Palestrina’s Perfect Art and Music by Renaissance
Women” as presented by the Folger Consort with Stile Antico, Tesserae Baroque,
and Webb Wiggins at Washington National Cathedral was welcomed respite. While
the Dresser did not find the concert as perfect as the program title hinted, there
were many moments of exquisite beauty.
As is the custom with the Folger Consort represented by Robert
Eisenstein (viola da gamba, violin and recorder) and Christopher Kendall (lute
and theorbo), guest artists provided a large part of the texture and virtuosity
of the program. Stile Antico, a 12-member vocal ensemble specializing in Early
Music and based in London, provided the angelic sound craved when one enters
the gothic-styled Washington National Cathedral. Their name meaning old style was coined during the
seventeenth century to describe the style of Renaissance church composition represented
by Palestrina’s music. Tesserae Baroque, a fluid group of performers specializing
in music of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries
and based in Los Angeles, provided four musicians playing such instruments as
sackbut, cornetto, and recorder to enhance the range and complexity of the
Folger Consort strings. Webb Wiggins, a well credentialed organist, added depth
on the continuo in this overly large space.
Compositions by Palestrina opened and closed the first set
of the program with short pieces by women (Raffaella Aleotti, Maddalena Casulana,
Sulpitia Cesis, Leonora d’Este) and men (Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Merulo, Giovanni Bassano, Lodovico Grossi da Viadana)
composers of the Renaissance period. Two compositions by Palestrina—the lyrically
beautiful but delicate and almost hard to hear “Regina coeli” opened the
program while the robust “Stabat Mater” with all performers on stage closed the
first set before intermission. Additionally, the first half of the program
included Francesco Rognoni’s “Diminutions on Palestrina’s Pulchra es amica mea,”
which was performed with organ and cornetto.
The second half of the program introduced three composers
not heard earlier in the program. “Diminutions on Palestrina’s Vestiva I colli” by Bartolomé de Selma y
Salaverde, Canzon
à
4 instruments by Francesco Cavalli, and “Ave maris stella”
by Claudio Monteverdi. “Diminutions on Vestiva
I colli” performed with organ, viola da gamba, theorbo, and recorder was
haunting in its beauty. This piece was prefaced by a performance of Palestrina’s
original composition which was played by viola da gamba, theorbo, sackbuts, and
cornettoes.
For the Dresser, the centerpiece of this concert was performance
of three compositions by Leonora d’Este—“Veni sponsa Christi,” “O salutaris hostia,”
and “Sicut lilium inter spinas.” Each was sung a cappella with five female
singers who stood at varying distances behind the stage and inside the enclosed
area known as the Great Choir, which produced a sound that was quieter and
perhaps a bit muffled. The Dresser believes this staging was to simulate how
the work of d’Este sounded as it was performed in her cloistered nunnery—nuns
sang (and played instruments) for the public but the performers were behind a
screen.
Other favorite compositions were the three compositions by
Raffaella Aleotti—“Exaudi Deus orationem meam,” “Angelus ad pastores alit,” and
“Sancta et immaculata virginitas.” The Dresser found herself breathing with
relief as she listened to the Stile Antico voices singing. A bit troubling was
the muddy sounding Gabrieli Cazone à 5 instruments which included Eisenstein on
violin, an instrument that proved problematic for him earlier in the program
when he lost his way in “Canzon Francese in risposta.”
Most of the texts that accompanied some of the music in this
concert were either sacred (in the Catholic practice) or nature oriented. The
Dresser nods to Nancy Allinson in her meditative poem “Souls within the Leaves,”
which addresses the Hindu belief of reincarnation, a belief that seamlessly blends
the sacred and the natural world.
SOULS WITHIN THE LEAVES
Parvita, my Indian neighbor and a Hindu, believes in
reincarnation:
“Our souls will return after death. I am not afraid of
dying. It is natural.”
Her own son, age 40, died of a heart attack. There was no
warning.
He and his wife were watching a movie on a Friday night.
Parvita tells me: “He slumped in the chair as if he were
sleeping.
But, he never woke up.”
Today, you and I walked through Montrose Park in Georgetown.
A warm October afternoon. Then we both smelled gas. It broke
the spell.
That spell of living so much in the moment. I would call the
gas company.
File a report. Try to help a neighborhood. I heeded the
warning sign.
We watch on t.v. another hurricane hitting the Florida
panhandle.
I grieve over the loss of trees in Tallahassee as if they
are people.
Today is a good day for you and me.
Persimmons and acorns fall from the trees in the garden.
Whose souls live within the leaves that have fallen from
those trees?
by Nancy Allinson
from What a Windstorm
Teaches
Photo credit: Marco Borggreve