MY MUSICS (SECOND PART)

MY MUSICS (SECOND PART) Here is a collection of reviews of various pieces of music that are most of them from the old times, or at least older times. They are like a scattered handful of earth collected though in months and years of travelling in strange lands and countries, at times waste lands in which I may have been looking for beauty and may have found it, though probably not always. But the beauty is not in what we find, but in the search itself. Enjoy the hike in these fabulous abd yet wild mountains. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. JERUSALEM CITY OF THE TWO PEACES: HEAVENLY PEACE AND EARTHLY PEACE II. JERUSALEM LA VILLE DES DEUX PAIX : LA PAIX CELESTE ET LA PAIX TERRESTRE III. ROSSI – SALADIN – GROSSI – MUSIQUE JUDEO-BAROQUE – JUDEO-BAROQUE MUSIC IV. ROLAND DE LASSUS – HIEREMIAE PROPHETAE LAMENTATIONES – PHILIPPE HERREWEGHE V. JORDIS SAVALL – LE ROYAUME O8UBLIÉ, La Tragédie Cathare – THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM, The Tragedy of the Cathars VI. GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT – LE VRAY REMÈDE D’AMOUR VII. GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT – LE JUGEMENT DU ROI DE NAVARRE VIII. GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT – MESSE DE NOSTRE DAME IX. LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI FRANCE 1- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - LES PREMIERES HEURES DE L’ERE CHRETIENNE : DE L’ORIENT A L’OCCIDENT – THE DAWN OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA : FROM EAST TO WEST 2- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - LE REGNE DU CHANT GREGORIEN – THE REIGN OF GREGORIAN CHANT 3- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - LE TEMPS DE L’AMOUR COURTOIS – THE AGE OF COURTLY LOVE 4- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - LES PREMIERES POLYPHONIES (XII-XIIIe SIECLES) – THE BIRTH OF POLYPHONY 5- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - LE SIECLE DE L’ARS NOVA (XIVe SIECLE) – ARS NOVA AND THE 14th CENTURY 6- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - A L’AUBE DE LA RENAISSANCE (XVe SIECLE) – THE DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE (15th CENTURY) AMAZON.CO.UK – AMAZON.COM A good tool but short on explanations, 30 Mar 2008 Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) This review is from: The Richest Hours of the Medieval Age - A Medieval Journey (Audio CD) AMAZON.FR Vaste panorama qui pèche du côté explication, 30 mars 2008 Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) Ce commentaire fait référence à cette édition : Les très riches heures du Moyen Age - A Medieval Journey (CD) X. SUZANNE HAIK VANTOURA - CD - LA MUSIQUE DE LA BIBLE REVELEE XI. OCKEGHEM – REQUIEM – ENSEMBLE ORGANUM – MARCEL PERES – HARMONIA MUNDI XII. PUERTA DE VELUNTAD – ALIA MUSICA – MIGUEL SANCHEZ XIII. SCHÜTZ – DIE SIEBEN WORTE JESU CHRISTI AM KREUZ XIV. CHANTS DE LA LITURGIE SLAVONE – SLAVONIC LITURGY – CHŒURS DES MOINES DE CHEVETOGNE XV. CARLOS MENA ALTO – STABAT MATER XVI. SIR GEORG SOLTI – RICHARD STRAUSS – SALOME XVII. KAREL ANCERL – GOLD EDITION – IGOR STRAVINSKY – LES NOCES – CANTATA – MASS XVIII. PAUL McCREESH – GABRIELI CONSORT CHOIR AND PLAYERS – VENETIAN VESPERS XIX. VIVALDI – CONCERTI PER FLAUTINO E ARCHI 1/26 JERUSALEM CITY OF THE TWO PEACES: HEAVENLY PEACE AND EARTHLY PEACE The very conception of this book with two CDs or of these two CDs and their accompanying book is superb. The book is in eight languages, including of course Arabic and Hebrew, along with the lyrics of the numerous vocal pieces (though Catalan is excluded then but the original languages include Armenian, Latin, Occitan). This makes the book and the CDs very easy to use and enjoy. The architecture of the two CDs is also remarkable. It starts from heavenly peace found in the old prophesies of the Apocalypse and Doomsday, the Second Coming and the Last Judgment. We will not harp on the meaning of apocalypse which is revelation though it is taken here in its semantic content, the revelation of the end of the world. Then it rebuilds the history of Jerusalem from the Jewish city of old to the Christian city, the city of pilgrims, the Arab and Ottoman city, a Land of Refuge and Exile, and finally the city where the Earthly peace will have to be built. This phenomenal city cannot be denied its crossroads nature and heritage, its melting pot essence where so many different cultures have come together and merged, more or less. Even if Jerusalem was Jewish for a very long time it was also the capital of Judah, whose kings (the Herods and some others) were not Jewish. They were Arabs and the Arabs have always been present in the Jewish culture since Abraham had a Jewish wife who gave him Isaac, and an Arab slave who gave him Ishmael, that he tried to legitimize by making him the son of his wife, though he is totally marginalized if even mentioned in the Jewish or Christian common traditions, and is referred to with some dignity only by Islam. If Jerusalem is an eternal city it is only of that crisscrossing fate of having produced from one single man and two women, a wife and a slave, the two basic Semitic traditions, Judaism and Islam, the former giving birth later to the third Semitic religion that is Christianity. The book shows that dimension marvelously. We must also note that the musical nest of these three traditions is the Levite school of music and singing of King David, based and derived from the Mesopotamian (Sumerian) and Egyptian traditions, the only traditions fully developed at the time and from which (the Sumerian and Mesopotamian side) the Greek Pythagorean tradition will be born and will develop, giving our Western music later on via the Christian tradition of Gregorian vocal polyphony. Jerusalem was the main melting pot of older traditions and the cradle of all modern oriental (Middle East and Maghreb) and Western traditions in music. It is unimaginable that there can be such a tremendous hatred and hostility and rejection among these traditions as soon as we speak of politics and history, social cohabitation and national coexistence. Culturally Jerusalem is the one and only trunk from which all Jewish, Arabian or Arabic and European Christian branches have grown. How can anyone pretend it is the capital of only one side. We must reckon the Christian Crusades did a lot along that line by deciding to introduce what was not the rule at the time, i.e. sectarianism, by conquering the region and transforming it, Jerusalem among other places, into a purely Christian land where the Jews and the Moslems were hunted down and persecuted. And that was the result of the tremendous development of feudalism, itself the fruit brought to Christianity by the Peace of th God movement (10 century), but also of the need to export the war activities of the knights and military personnel, if not class, to foreign countries to keep peace within Christianity. The vast Slavic and Slavonic plains (the Lithuania of old) was far from being enough to satisfy that need for warfare that also produced the civil wars of England, and the hundred year war in France, to quote only a few. Musically some pieces are astoundingly beautiful and emotionally disturbing, like King David’s “Psalm 137”, the “Song of Exile” (track 13 CD1), that is heartburning and soul-raking to an utmost level and that finds a Christian echo in the “Hymn to the Virgin at the foot of the Cross” (Track 15, CD1), a Moslem echo in the “Sallutu Allah” (track 5 CD2) even if lighter and partaking more in the communion with divine joy, and a Palestinian echo in the “Palestinian Lament” (track10 CD2) or even Armenian in the “Lament for the City of Ani” (track 11 CD2). But the First call to the Crusade by Pope Urban II in 1095 in Clermont Ferrand (track 17 CD1) is a pitiful piece of ignorance, bringing the Arabs from Persia (which is Indo-European linguistically and culturally). Note this Call was in Latin and not in French originally even if it is given in modern French here, a touch of anachronism. The lamenting dimension is very present in the CDs and that probably represents a modern vision of a city of suffering, more in the absence or distance between us and her than in the historical dimension of this suffering which is though quite pregnant too. The last part dedicated to the peace on earth we have to build in Jerusalem becomes poignant and mind muddling and bungling by the total alliance and joining of all languages, styles and musics, voices and chants into a multifarious rainbow of harmonious psalmody that literally wrings tears out of our minds and souls. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU 2/26 JERUSALEM LA VILLE DES DEUX PAIX : LA PAIX CELESTE ET LA PAIX TERRESTRE La conception même de ce livre avec ses deux CD ou de ces deux CD avec son livre d’accompagnement est une superbe réalisation. Le livre est en huit langues, y compris l’Arabe et l’Hébreu, ainsi que les paroles des textes des CDs (bien que le Catalan soit exclus alors, et les paroles originales ajoutent l’Arménien, le Latin et l’Occitan). Ceci rend ce livre et ses CD faciles à utiliser et à suivre, et donc à apprécier. L’architecture des deux CD est elle aussi remarquable, commençant avec la paix céleste et l’évocation de l’Apocalypse et du Jugement Dernier, de la Seconde Venue et de la fin du monde, même si cette paix céleste est plutôt construite sur la destruction du monde terrestre. La reconstruction de l’histoire de Jérusalem ensuite part de la ville Juive d’autrefois pour passer à la ville chrétienne, la ville des pèlerinages, la ville arabe et ottomane, la ville des réfugiés et des exilés et finalement la ville de la paix sur terre que l’on doit construire. Cette ville phénoménale ne peut être séparée de son rôle de carrefour et de son patrimoine multiple, son essence de creuset où tant de cultures différentes se sont rencontrées et se sont mêlées plus ou moins. Même si Jérusalem fut une ville juive pendant très longtemps, elle était aussi la capitale de la Judée dont les rois (les Hérodes et quelques autres) n’étaient pas juifs. Ils étaient arabes et les Arabes ont toujours été présents dans la culture juive puisqu’Abraham avait une femme juive qui lui donna Isaac et une esclave arabe qui lui donna Ishmail qu’il tenta de légitimiser en en faisant un fils de son épouse, bien qu’il soit essentiellement marginalisé si même mentionné dans la tradition courante juive ou chrétienne, et il n’est une référence que dans l’Islam. Si Jérusalem est une ville éternelle ce n’est que de ce destin métissé d’avoir produit d’un seul homme et de deux femmes, une épouse et une esclave, les deux traditions sémitiques fondamentales, le Judaïsme et l’Islam, la première donnant naissance plus tard à la troisième religion sémitique qu’est le Christianisme. Ce livre montre cette dimension de façon merveilleuse. Nous devons aussi noter que le creuset musical de ces trois traditions c’est l’école de musique et de chant lévite du Roi David, fondée et dérivée des traditions mésopotamienne (sumérienne) et égyptienne, les seules traditions pleinement développées à l’époque et desquelles (le flanc sumérien et mésopotamien) la tradition pythagoricienne grecque naîtra et se développera donnant la musique occidentale plus tard par la transition chrétienne de la polyphonie vocale grégorienne. Jérusalem fut le principal creuset de traditions plus anciennes et le berceau de toutes les traditions musicales orientales (Moyen Orient et Maghreb) et occidentale. Il est inimaginable qu’il y ait un tel niveau de haine et d’hostilité et de rejet entre ces traditions dès que nous parlons politique et histoire, cohabitation sociale et coexistence nationale. Culturellement Jérusalem est le seul et unique tronc sur lequel toutes les branches juives, arabes et chrétiennes européennes ont poussé. Comment quiconque peut prétendre qu’elle n’est la capitale que d’un seul bord ? Il est vrai que nous devons reconnaître que les Croisades chrétiennes ont fait beaucoup dans cette direction en décidant d’introduire ce qui n’était pas la règle alors, c'est-à-dire le sectarisme, en conquérant la région et en la transformant, Jérusalem entre autres villes, en un pays purement chrétien où les Juifs et les Musulmans étaient pourchassés et persécutés. Et c’était là le résultat du fantastique développement du ème féodalisme, le fruit que le mouvement de la Paix de Dieu (10 siècle) apporta à la chrétienté, mais également du besoin d’exporter les activités guerrières des chevaliers et du personnel militaire, pour ne pas dire de la classe militaire, vers des pays étrangers pour conserver la paix dans la chrétienté. Les vastes plaines slaves et slavonnes (la Lituanie d’antan) était loin de satisfaire ce besoin de combat guerrier qui produisit aussi les guerres civiles d’Angleterre et la guerre de cent ans en France, pour n’en citer que quelques unes. Musicalement certaines pièces sont époustouflantes de beauté et émotionnellement perturbante, comme le « Psaume 137 » du Roi David, le « Chant de l’Exil » (piste 13 CD1), qui vous déchire le cœur et vous tisonne l’âme à un niveau incroyable de puissance et qui trouve un écho chrétien dans « l’Hymne à la Vierge au pied e la Croix » (piste 15 CD1) ou un écho arabe dans le « Sallutu Allah » (piste 5, CD2) même si plus dansant, plus communiant dans une certaine joie du divin, et un écho palestinien dans la « Plainte palestinienne » (piste 10 CD2), voir arménien dans la « Lamentation sur la ville d’Ani » (piste 11 CD2). Mais le premier appel à la croisade d’Urbain II en 1095 à Clermont Ferrand (piste 17 CD1) est un pitoyable morceau d’ignorance, positionnant les Arabes en Perse (qui est une terre indo-européenne linguistiquement et culturellement). Notons en plus que cet appel fut prononcé en latin, certainement pas en français moderne comme sur le CD. Une touche d’anachronisme. La dimension lamentation est très présente dans ces disques et cela est probablement une vision moderne de la souffrance que porte cette ville, surtout dans l’absence ou la distance qui nous sépare d’elle plus que dans l’héritage historique d’une souffrance pourtant fortement représentée. 3/26 La dernière partie dédiée à la paix sur la terre qu’il nous faut construire à Jérusalem devient poignante et elle nous défonce et torture l’esprit de sa totale alliance et association de toutes les langues, de toutes les voix et de tous les chants en un arc en ciel multiple et bigarré d’une psalmodie mélodieuse qui littéralement nous arrache les larmes de nos âmes. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU ROSSI – SALADIN – GROSSI – MUSIQUE JUDEO-BAROQUE – JUDEO-BAROQUE MUSIC Louis Saladin’s Canticum Hebraicum, maybe composed to celebrate the circumcision of a child, is first of all a Provencal feast, a celebration and dancing occasion for the non-Jews as well as the Jews of the Avignon area who were invited. Light, joyful, even maybe playful. But I will not follow the presentation by Joel th Cohen. I don’t think it antagonized the orthodox Christians and Jews of this area in this finishing 17 century. This music shows how integrated the Jews were at that time in this region, especially since the composer was not a Jew himself. This is a sign of what was going to happen later, e precursive sign of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution which entirely legalized Jews for the first time since the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. On the other hand Carlo Grossi’s Cantata Ebraica is far more formal and austere, composed by a non-Jew it was quite obviously done for some purely Jewish occasion and did not show a real festive spirit but a more introspective contemplation of the Jewish God. But the most surprising set of compositions is Salamone de Rossi Ebreo’s The Songs of Salomon. First the composer is Jewish. Second he is from Venice, a widely – or is wildly – open city and harbor in those days. Third he is from the pure Renaissance period, th th Monteverdi’s time, the end of the 16 and beginning of the 17 centuries. The instrumental pieces are so typical, so art-like and air-light. They float, soar and glide in our minds like some warm wind in the higher climes of the sky. Brilliant for sure. The Hymns are inspired by Solomon’s songs, among others the Song of Songs, and they venerate or celebrate a Jewish vision of the Biblical God. A God in front of which we are supposed to kneel and then a God we are supposed to praise in his decisions, in his government of our fate. There is no love from that God, but authority we accept and welcome. That meaning is in pure contrast with the Christian evocation of God in which we experience the ordeal Christ went through, his passion, or his life that ends in death on the cross and resurrection. This suffering cannot be found there. Love and salvation are not here either. We are used to the Christian use of baroque and Renaissance music. This Jewish use of it is surprising because the atmosphere it creates is contemplative, submissive, a praise in humility and acceptance of any decision from God, any fate that can only be decided and provided by God, a God I must praise no matter how high and intense my suffering is due to this fate. The suffering of the passion is not imposed to God’s son but to God’s children, all of them without any exception, to punish them in their disobedience and lack of awe in front of all-powerful and almighty omniscient God. We are dealing here with the fate the Jews had in the Christian world: diaspora, pogroms, ghettos, etc. “God is with me, I have no fear!” We will regret though that the booklet of the CD does not – condescend to – give us the words in Hebrew as if we were not worth getting them, but that is an economy of scale Harmonia Mundi often does. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU ROLAND DE LASSUS – HIEREMIAE PROPHETAE LAMENTATIONES – PHILIPPE HERREWEGHE th This is one of the most surprising though extremely popular in the 16 century piece of music taken directly from the Bible, Jeremiah's Lamentations on the destruction of the Temple and the captivity of the Jewish people under the authority of Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldean King, the King of what we know today as the Indo-European linguistic zone of Persia or Iraq and Iran, and of course the King of Babylon, THE Babylon, the Babylon of the Tower of Babel, of the punishment of humanity by God that cursed them with the multiplication of languages, meaning of course the vast division of humanity between Semitic and the nonSemitic languages. 4/26 This piece of poetry from the Old Testament is dedicated to a very particular event in the history of Israel and it is transformed in the Catholic Renaissance into a musical work spanned over Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday before Easter. It thus becomes a work dedicated to the destruction of the Temple of Jesus, his physical destruction in the crucifixion and his entombment before his final resurrection that is kept out of the work itself. The original text is an extremely beautiful piece of Hebrew poetry with very strict rules. A short hemistich and a long hemistich; one letter of the Hebrew alphabet in alphabetic order at the beginning of the first hemistich of each group of six, every three lines or verses, recreating there Solomon's number and David's star, starting with aleph, the only written vowel of the Hebrew language. It is also the initial letter of Adam and adamah (the earth) from which Adam is derived, and Jesus is the Son of Man, hence the New Adam, the man par excellence. The tone of this poem, even in Latin which has to abandon a lot of the Hebrew beauty, is funeral, even maybe in a way morbid, or at least it would be if it were not dedicated to Jesus who will eventually resurrect. But in the Hebrew original it is the fundamental poetry that will shape the Jewish mind and develop if not cultivate in all the Jews in the world that art and propensity to lament on their fate, lot, destiny if not purely cursed survival in a hostile world. The music chosen by Roland de Lassus is supposed to amplify the calamity of this vision. Five voices, all working in a rather low range with a systematic use of one voice, often the lowest or lower, as the continuo of the other or others, building some kind of very stable and immobile background to the frontal voices that are more crawling than moving, suspending time, tempo and measure so much that at times we reach a quasi unmoving extremely flat timeless frozen reality that evokes eternity, beyond the alpha and the omega, beyond the invention of time by God, the absence of time that is godlike and divine eternity. And this time-free eternity is associated to that deep everlasting unswerving lamentation that provides life with a color, white of course, the absence of darkness, the light God created a long time ago when he created time by separating the day from the night and by hanging the luminaries in the sky. The only surviving created element is that light pouring itself onto the lamentation and the suffering, the contemplative and self-righteous and self-centered lamentation. We have to understand that this typical Jewish dimension is of course overcome by the Holy Sunday of Easter and Jesus' resurrection. I will say that the beauty of that music is of course inside the music itself, but the lamentation takes a completely different force and power, hence beauty, when we invest the light of the resurrection into that mournful lamentation. This piece is also essential within and with the Reformation debate of the time since the Protestant religion, both Lutheran and Calvinist, will also vastly develop this lamenting and extremely death-oriented mood, especially with Bach and his Passions in which the joy of the Resurrection is mostly an added detail that crowns the sadness of the evocation of the martyrdom, and even that joy is often very sad in coloration like the very last piece of Saint John's Passion which is a lullaby of death more than eternal life, “Ruht wohl” (rest well). The main shortcoming of this edition is that the text in Latin, and of course a translation are not provided, making the apprehension of the meaning of the words difficult, except if you have a Bible in Latin available next to you. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU JORDIS SAVALL – LE ROYAUME O8UBLIÉ, La Tragédie Cathare – THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM, The Tragedy of the Cathars At first it is necessary to remember the Cathar extermination is the worst ever crime against humanity committed within Christianity against other Christians. It is at least as awful as Auschwitz and if it was not done industrially for obvious reasons it was done with the absolute and supreme aim to destroy for ever and ever a whole community of people who were your own brothers, at times members of your own family, your parents or your children, just for one reason: they dared to think differently from the official canon decreed by a bunch of people in Rome. Here we are only dealing with the music, and we should not forget that this movement is also political, economic and social. The religious deviance will be uprooted but not the political and social demands and reforms that will take place nevertheless and in spite of the resistance of those who had just destroyed the Cathars. The future was coming from the south as for city organization, political and social structure, feudalism and the new mercantile order coming up that will only take over after the Black Death and the Hundred Year War. To understand, maybe, this division of the Christian world we have to understand that Europe was colonized by the Indo-Europeans starting around 5 or 6 thousand years ago via two routes. The Meditarranean route crossed Anatolia and then spread to Greece, Italy and Iberia and the coasts of the Mediterranean sea. But the other route was just as important. They crossed the Caucasus and then entered 5/26 the vast plains of Central Europe and moved west and north. They will be rejoined later on by the FinnoUgrian people. But the important fact is that these Indo-Europeans did not migrate in great numbers but in small numbers but bringing a new economy, agriculture and herding, and new languages along with new cultures and religions. If we know little about the Turkic people who populated Europe and represent 80% of our DNA heritage as compared to 20% only to Indo-European people, we know for sure that they were the majority of the people as they are the vast majority of our DNA heritage. The two routes that imported religions and cultures led to different compromises and syntheses, and when the Christian faith took over the Mediterranean route to Rome it was the shortest way but it was not the only one and actually the eastern branch and the northern branch remained different and are still different as the Orthodox church that refuses the hierarchical organization of the Catholic church. It is closer to the people, maybe more contemplative too. The Cathars are plunging their roots into this old and deep division and they had to come from the East, the heart of the Orthodox faith actually, Bulgaria, maybe even farther east and north. The mystery is why they spread so fast and so deep in the Mediterranean zone. I may suggest that what some consider as the hatred of the Roman Empire and civilization survived in the hatred of the Roman Catholic church and its imperial organization and brilliance if not wasteful and vain riches. CD1 track 7, “Beside the Cross” is a way to look at the crucifixion that is entirely centered on the suffering and the acceptance of that suffering because you have to accept suffering and not because that suffering is saving you. The salvation is not in the suffering of Jesus or his mother but in the sad and submissive contemplation of the suffering as if it were yours and into which you project yourselves. You have to feel the suffering if you want to be saved in your own mind and not in some future promised land that is virtual at most and unreal definitely. CD1 track 12, the divorce of Eleanor of Aquitania from the French king Louis VII is one of these personal events that will change the face of Europe since it will create the rivalry between England and France that was to last for centuries, cause the Hundred Years War and so many other differences. But once again it is not this private event, this divorce that produced this rift. The divorce and the subsequent rift was caused by a deeper rift and it slightly shifted it from what it was to what it became. It was the rift between the South and South West of Europe and the northern part, and in France itself (which did not exist as a nation yet) between the Occitan southern half and the northern part that spoke a completely different language and had a completely different culture. But what brought this southern past of France to Catharism, the religion of the poor? Probably the refusal and rejection of Roman norms that goes back to the way the conquest of Gaul and Celtic Europe was done brutally destroying its language and culture, not to speak of its religion based on the local community and not the imperial hierarchy of power or spiritual references. That probably has to do with the fact that the older form of spirituality in Indo-European and Turkic cultures was the RSI (Indo-European name): a man who was the carrier and conveyor, possessor and voice of all spiritual levels: poetry and language, including religious rites and addresses to god, priest since he had the ritual language under control, political power and memory of the community, hence the legal adviser and law defender. Apparently that unique character was split in Europe along with the migrations. The Slavs kept the priest and the soldier together, the Germans gave pre-eminence to the knight and soldier, the Celts gave pre-eminence to the priest (and detainer of language), the Mediterraneans gave pre-eminence to the political figure to the point that a general had to conquer political power to be really recognized in Greece or the Roman empire. Occitania retained the old Celtic culture of a personal, introspective religious faith contained in the local community. CD1 Track 15, what a beautiful dirge for burning bodies assassinated by the flames of the intolerant. And the stakes are burning and the bodies are dissolving in flames and the very glory of the catholic god is enhanced by these cruel murders, isn’t it. But the music is so beautiful, so bleak and sad. What vision of life and the world can the people who are living under these lethal drums of death have, if anything else than the exquisite pleasure of suffering? Is that contemplative vision of suffering the result of this barbaric age or the achievement of a higher level of spirituality? Never forget, never forgive such rage! It has no excuse. Let us come together in that beautiful sadness on CD1 track 21. On CD2 track 5 some man tells how barbaric, hostile and treacherous the Cathars are, attacking in the back and encouraging thieves and murderers. CD2 track 6 is a call for vengeance, the vengeance of an offense done to God, the Catholic God, no one else, no real human person, just God. The Catholics are calling for vengeance because they are hurt in the Cathar lack of respect for their God, a God who is of Peace and Love. And yet it is vengeance that eliminates the heretics both physically and religiously. That’s what they called peace and love. Peace for the Catholics and love for the Catholics. Where are peace and love for one’s neighbor? It is in such joy at the prospect of killing in as much suffering as possible that we 6/26 find out and know that man is not essentially good, nor evil, as for that, just human that is to say ready to do anything with joy provided it gives them survival and satisfaction. CD2 track 10 is the direct answer to the previous frivolous and dancelike evocation of the destruction of Beziers and it laments on the death of the Lord of Beziers. What joy can there be in killing? What mournful sufferance there is in being killed or witnessing an unjust murder! CD2 track 11 expresses in a few words the irreversible fate of such crimes that just get forgotten: “”neither man nor God not anyone on earth will hold it against them [the killing crusaders].” On CD2 track 16 we have the epitaph for Simon de Montfort. The Crusader who killed so many and had so many killed is compared to Jesus who did not offer the flesh and blood of anyone else but himself. The comparison does not need any comment at all. The last track of this second CD is the absolute accusation of Rome as being inhuman and just ungodly in its very essence and we recapture a century old hatred of Rome, the conquering empire that had become the conquering Catholic church. Now the tempest is finished CD3 starts with a different tone, a tone that may not sound as somber and sinister as before but in a way there is like a complacency and a cynicism that is definitely not very recommendable. The reading of the Papal rules of the Inquisition does not dispel that hypocritical and cynical atmosphere. In fact it makes both even deeper and more out of time and out of space, eternal in other words, an essence of man in his deep evil and the acceptance of that evil. Track 5 shows how the victims or the survivors of this crusade are turning back to the catholic faith to try to alleviate, with praying all the suffering they have been through, and to get a promise that they won’t be sent to hell, which would be an again. It’s no longer the moaning and crying of them who suffer or have suffered but the slightly nostalgic tone and atmosphere of men who would like to forget, who would like to go back to peace even at the price of conforming to the winner’s religion, which is after all nothing but a vestment that can cover anything you want. Track 10 pushes that cynicism one notch further and we feel that behind this nonchalant cynicism that is no blindness at all there still is the desire of a pure religion close to those who believe and practice. The reformation is in fact already hibernating under that cloak of ashes and that flood of blood. This tone will be kept till the end though tracks 18 and 19 dedicated to Joan of Ark are slightly misplaced. The Hundred Year War is in no way the consequence of that crusade though it is the consequence of a rift in Europe between the English who started to invent modern democracy in 1215 with Magna Carta, hence to get rid of feudalism and France that was defending that feudalism and will push it so far that it will break in 1789. The shift then to the Ottoman Empire and the end of Eastern Catharism after the fall of Constantinople is historically farfetched. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT – LE VRAY REMÈDE D’AMOUR Œuvre entièrement dédiée à l’amour, musique un peu lancinante et très répétitive en accord avec la forme poétique de Guillaume de Machaut qui se complaît dans cette circularité qui n’en finit pas de tourner les pages en avant et en arrière comme pour s’enchaîner dans le sentiment exprimé, celui d’un amour infini de l’âme qui comme s’hypnotise elle-même à la vision de la beauté de la femme. Mais voilà que la rébellion est venue à terme du fait de l’insatisfaction, de la frustration, de la vexation, de l’humiliation que l’amour courtois apporte, un amour associé à l’hypocrisie. Un intermède musical trouve la vigueur de tambours qui résonnent comme les pas lourds de celui qui n’en peut plus d’attendre. La musique prend alors une facture qui a survécu jusqu’à nos jours dans les musiques de nos montagnes ou d’Irlande. C’est donc des profondeurs matérielles que monte cette frustration. Mais les pulsions profondes sont refoulées et rejetées au profit à nouveau de la soumission dans une polyphonie très dominée. C’est l’énumération de tous les instruments de l’ensemble qui créent l’unité de la musique et de l’harmonie, tous les instruments disponibles en ces temps anciens. Il illustre cela d’une pièce musicale qui montre à la fois l’unité de l’harmonie et du tempo, du rythme, les deux jouant sur des variations dans le cadre d’une répétitivité mélodique certaine. Une voix de femme claire monte scandée de notes égrainées sur une corde, à la fois mélodie et scansion. On est revenu à l’amour satisfaisant dans sa pureté d’un point de vue de femme qui trouve sa satisfaction dans une contemplation visuelle et auditive de son propre cœur centré sur la jouissance du sentiment amoureux en lui-même. L’homme revient avec son amour absolu pour le visage de la femme, presqu’un fétichisme, retour à l’imagerie du début de l’œuvre. S’ensuit un motet dédié au Christ de lumière pour qu’il intervienne pour imposer la paix, le repos, la justice sur terre mais cela mène à une ambiguïté, celle de la paix vers laquelle on veut partir, la paix éternelle au-delà de la mort. De la paix sur terre on est passé à la paix céleste, non une compensation mais 7/26 un glissement, un transfert tout autant qu’une contradiction. Paix et guerre coexistent sur terre comme un souhait entre terre et ciel, la paix du ciel comme promesse à gagner dans la guerre du monde. On notera que ce long motet est en latin alors que le reste du texte est en français. Guillaume de Machaut nous propose sa version – bien antérieure à « l’original » - du sonnet des couleurs de Rimbaud, centrant toutes les couleurs sur le bleu azur, couleur de la loyauté courtoise en amour. La femme revient avec sa plainte face à l’ami qui l’a oubliée et se réfugie dans la dénégation totale d’amour. La pièce instrumentale qui suit est d’une douce nostalgie qui exprime la tristesse du manque autant que le repos serein de la renonciation. Guillaume de Machaut a l’art d’exprimer des sentiments doubles comme ceux-là. Il excelle à mêler des tons mineurs qui virent au majeur comme par enchantement. On trouve l’inverse parfois toujours pour exprimer l’ambiguïté, la contradiction. La femme exprime, en polyphonie masculine, toute sa souffrance face à la négligence, l’abandon dont elle est l’objet. Cette longue lamentation aux accents mineurs presque poignants de ces deux voix d’hommes qui se contrastent et se complètent comme deux cœurs à jamais séparés. Cette femme dont le cœur meurt d’amour, se languit dans le désir de retrouver l’ami, peut-être, de partir à jamais. L’homme revient pour exprimer à son tour l’abandon, l’attente de la satisfaction qui ne vient pas. Une pièce instrumentale exprime alors la langueur de cet ami qui aime sans retour. L’homme évoque son terrible dilemme. Gai, dansant, heureux en un mot, en public sur une musique entrainante, tambours et autres percussions donnant un tempo fort, soutenu. Pourtant, au plus profond, c’est la douleur de l’insatisfaction. C’est à Dieu qu’il demande une intercession auprès de la dame pour qu’elle réponde à son amour. L’homme rêve de voir sa dame. Cela devient une prière à sa dame de satisfaire son désir de la voir. Il compare sa dame à une rose épanouie dans son jardin complètement dévasté. Son dilemme est de la garder dans sa beauté et donc l’impossibilité pour lui de la cueillir car la cueillir serait la tuer et avec elle son amour. Il se doit d’aimer en admirateur qui ne sera jamais satisfait. La chanson reflète la beauté de la fleur, la beauté du sentiment et la langueur devant l’intouchabilité de la fleur. Il a peur que la distance de la dame, son enfermement dans sa douleur qu’elle cause elle-même par sa distance ne fasse périr la rose, l’amour. L’homme adresse une prière à « mon cœur, ma sœur, ma douce amour » qui risque par hauteur et refus de tuer l’amour lui-même. L’amant, tout courtois qu’il soit, a besoin de satisfaction. La prière devient une incantation presque rituelle, magique ou pire encore, pour n’ouvrir que sur un motet à la mère du Christ, à la Vierge, à l’amour détourné de la Dame et orienté entièrement sur Nostre Dame, la religion, l’au-delà, la vie éternelle. L’amour qui guérit tout est l’amour pour Nostre éternellement vierge Dame, tous les jours, toutes les nuits de notre vie d’insatisfaction ici-bas. On est loin d’Adam de la Halle, et de ses Robin et Marion, des amours séculières du village. On a atteint le niveau supérieur de l’amour spirituel parfait qui clôt cette œuvre de son latin, la langue de la divinité. Avec un envoi en français, à la fin de l’envoi je touche, et il touche effectivement de sa loyauté et de son amour. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT – LE JUGEMENT DU ROI DE NAVARRE Tout commence avec l’amour courtois, puis passe à l’automne mélancolique er ensuite s’intéresse à la mort de la justice et de la vérité quand le vice est associé au pouvoir. La contradiction de cette vision poétique parcourt toute l’œuvre. L’amour courtois est le plaisir de servir et de défendre la dame en même temps que la douleur de ne jamais satisfaire ses désirs plus matériels. Et cela devient la contradiction entre le guide et le guidé, un problème de rhétorique particulièrement prégnant au Moyen Âge, puis une vision d’ « orribles merveilles », de calamités, de guerre et de batailles, et cette conclusion effroyable de « cinc cent mil hommes et femmes [qui] perdirent les corps et les âmes ». Ce binarisme chrétien profond du bien et du mal à jamais enlacés et liés ensemble par la volonté créatrice de Dieu. La beauté est dans cette alliance antagonique et le mal ne naît que de l’alliance de deux dimensions se renforçant l’une l’autre dans l’horreur comme le vice et le pouvoir. L’évocation de Lucifer qui s’ensuit en est l’illustration. Dieu n’a jamais détruit Lucifer, l’ange de lumière déchu et banni, mais qu’il a créé comme toute chose. La Vierge n’a fait que réparer le mal causé mais le mal est au plus profond de l’humanité, au point d’avoir même pénétré les élus de Jésus, ses apôtres, en la personne de Judas l’Iscariote. Si Dieu ne l’a pas détruit c’est que Dieu en a besoin au cœur même de sa création. Et l’évocation de la nature ensuite va à nouveau dans ce sens. La nature n’est qu’alliance de vie et de mort et la vie n’existe que par et dans la mort, et la mort n’existe qu’au cœur de la vie et par la vie. La musique des pièces instrumentales ou des pièces vocales est toujours quelque part nostalgique, triste, et 8/26 pourtant joyeuse ou heureuse dans cette nostalgie ou souffrance, dans la compassion face à la souffrance de la mort et du mal au cœur du vivant. Cela ne s’obtient que par l’usage de tons que l’on appellerait aujourd’hui mineurs et majeurs. L’évocation de la mort dans la maladie et les épidémies n’est pourtant pas vue du point de vue des morts ou de la mort, ou d’une approche mortifère de la vie, mais du point de vue des vivants qui ne peuvent que louer les morts et les soutenir dans leur voyage dans l’au-delà, et la mort alors devient merveilleuse pour les vivants qui lui sont tous promis. Et seul un Kyrie peut poursuivre cette descente exquise dans le monde de la mort car il nous ramène à l’acteur de l’espoir de cet au-delà promis par sa propre mort, cette mort du Christ qui nous permet de rédempter la nôtre propre. C’est la première pièce purement grégorienne de l’œuvre et cette musique grégorienne est en partie dépassée par un polyphonisme a capella que nourrit et encourage cette évocation rituelle éternellement inscrite dans les oreilles des enfants de la chrétienté et qui sera reprise par tous les compositeurs de musique sacrée, mais aussi de façon plus abstraite par ceux de musique temporelle ou séculière car le Christ est tout autant séculier et temporel que spirituel. C’est la mort temporelle de son corps, corps séculier, qui assure la survie de son esprit et de nos âmes spirituelles. Il ne reste alors qu’à évoquer péchés et prison, prison à la fois de l’esprit et du corps, car le péché est de l’âme comme de la chair. Un virelai instrumental peut alors mener notre danse funèbre vers l’espérance de la salvation. Cela ramène alors à l’amour courtois pour lequel l’épiphanie ne peut venir que de la satisfaction des vertus morales et le maintien des désirs non spirituels dans l’insatisfaction imposée pour laquelle la femme devient une désincarnation de son essence charnelle par une fétichisation des valeurs courtoises. Et dans la foulée il rejette tout son héritage, de l’Antiquité à son présent, de Thésée à Hercule, Jason, Absalon, Ulysse, Samson, Dalila, Argus et Pygmalion pour se glisser et trouver son plaisir dans la prison courtoise de sa seule dame de noblesse et de vertu. Et l’histoire de ce chevalier courtois qui reçoit un anneau de sa dame sous la promesse de ne jamais l’ôter si ce n’est de la main de sa dame elle-même, et qui, à la demande de le renvoyer à sa dame sous peine qu’elle souffrît disgrâce et déshonneur, s’ampute le doigt pour ne pas ôter lui-même l’anneau symbole de sa courtoisie. La ballade instrumentale qui s’ensuit élève cette contemplation de la perfection de loyauté et d’amour avec les vents qui jouent à être la basse continue des uns et des autres et qui développent leurs variations les uns en contraste des autres. Mais il évoque alors une dame qui aimait tellement son chevalier qui mourut en mer, qu’elle alla se noyer dans l’immensité de sa sépulture marine. L’amour courtois est une exquise souffrance qui se porte en silence en public et qui ne s’exprime que dans la solitude. Suit une étrange commande à Guillaume de trois amendes. Un lai « amiablement sans tension » pour la première. Une chanson avec refrain pour la seconde. Et une ballade pour la troisième. Les trois bien sûr dédiées à l’amour courtois qui trouve sa satisfaction dan son insatisfaction. Et le tout se conclut avec une ballade qui exprime toute la contradiction de cet amour qui ne trouve sa plénitude désincarnée que dans la frustration spirituelle de sa satisfaction charnelle. Cette conclusion est belle comme une vision répétée de miroir en miroir d’un miracle revécu à l’infini, le miracle de l’épiphanie du séculier dans le spirituel. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT – MESSE DE NOSTRE DAME C’est une messe à la Vierge Marie dans la plus pure et la plus réussie et complète tradition médiévale grégorienne et polyphonique. Elle est donc dédiée à Nostre Dame, cette dénomination qui est romane par essence mais aussi courtoise par symbiose avec l’amour courtois. C’est donc à la fois la matrice qui donnera plus tard les Vêpres de la Renaissance en général et de Monteverdi en particulier, mais en même temps c’est une vision totalement médiévale atteignant la perfection dans cette direction et ne la dépassant pas. On notera en particulier que c’est une messe et non des vêpres. Elle contient donc tout l’ordinaire d’une messe (les parties de la messe inaltérables tout le long de l’année ecclésiastique). Cette messe permet de mettre en perspective la prétendue rupture de la Renaissance. En fait de rupture c’est un dépassement des formes largement expérimentées et enrichies pendant ème des siècles. L’opéra de Monteverdi a ses racines dans le Ludus Danielis du 13 siècle, comme ses vêpres ont leurs racines dans cette messe. Et il faut garder en tête que quand une œuvre comme celle-ci est composée elle ne fait que poursuivre et parfaire une pratique quotidienne ou courante qui peut exister depuis des décennies voire des siècles. La messe contient des lectures des Ecritures Saintes, Ancien Testament et Nouveau Testament. Monteverdi formalisera l’utilisation des psaumes. On retrouve ici nettement l’opposition entre deux styles musicaux bibliques traditionnels dans la tradition hébraïque, la 9/26 prosodie et la psalmodie, tradition récupérée et modifiée par l’écriture grégorienne, dans la tradition juive de l’Ancien Testament remontant au Roi David. Là encore on trouve un cas typique de continuation et de dépassement plus que de rupture. Le grégorien a changé en partie la facture musicale de la tradition hébraïque bien qu’en grande partie conservée, mais surtout en introduisant deux psalmodies. Celle du « graduale » par exemple qui est contemplative comme une musique d’extase devant le merveilleux, ici le merveilleux de la Vierge comme guide des désirs de beauté des hommes, mais un désir de beauté menant à l’élévation, l’assomption, la montée dans les cieux. Une psalmodie monophonique. D’un autre côté, il y a une autre psalmodie, celle du « Kyrie » ou du « Gloria », qui est une psalmodie de louange et de vénération de l’immensité de l’amour divin et de sa vision de justice et de libération de l’esprit et de l’âme. Une prosodie richement polyphonique. On voit ainsi comment la tradition grégorienne plonge ses racines dans la tradition hébraïque en la dépassant et en l’enrichissant. Mais remarquons aussi que la puissance hébraïque révélée par la clé de lecture de Suzanne Haïk Vantoura et enregistrée par ailleurs ne se retrouve que peu dans cette messe et dans la musique sacrée du Moyen Âge plus contemplative, plus épiphanique et qui cherche davantage l’extase spirituelle et intérieure que l’expression de la violence et de la force d’un dieu des armées, des batailles et des victoires. Remarquons que c’est dans ces différences que la tradition de Bach pourra introduire à côté des récitatifs prosodiques les chorals psalmodiques monophoniques et les arias, duos et autres formes de psalmodie polyphonique et de virtuosité vocale. Remarquons enfin que cette messe prête à la Vierge des qualités physiques de beauté qui la rendent divine ou digne du choix de Dieu. Par exemple « diffusa est gratia in labiis tuis » (la grâce a été répandue sur tes lèves) avec le terme « gratia » qui peut à la fois faire référence à la grâce divine et à la grâce physique de la Vierge, bien que l’association de cette grâce aux lèvres de la Vierge pousse vers la beauté physique, même si les lèvres sont les voies de la parole et que la Vierge, en intermédiaire pour notre défense devant Dieu et son fils, peut répandre une parole de grâce ou une parole qui gagne la grâce de Dieu à notre endroit. On a trop souvent l’habitude ou la tendance de regarder cette musique uniquement en ancêtre de la nôtre alors qu’elle est aussi la descendante de musiques plus anciennes. C’est une forme de rétrospectivité qui ne voit que notre source dans le passé sans voir que le passé est aussi le fruit d’une passé plus ancien. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI FRANCE 1- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - LES PREMIERES HEURES DE L’ERE CHRETIENNE : DE L’ORIENT A L’OCCIDENT – THE DAWN OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA : FROM EAST TO WEST To start in Greece is necessarily to start in the Middle East tradition since Greek music is derived, inherited, in more or less direct descent from the Sumerian tradition, the oldest phase of development known to us. The CD even tries at the beg inning to compare the Greek and Arabic versions of some songs coming from Byzantium. Arabic might not be the right term, or it might have been interesting to compare with Hebraic music too. The Greek Melchite church derives its music from the Syriac malka. That Byzantine music is ecstatic, contemplative but of some inner reality, very personal. It does not have yet the collective feeling that is going to develop later in the Christian tradition. There seems to be a direct link between the faithful individual and God to which he or she is addressing his or her prayer. No intercessor. That is to come later. And this direct address is a common point with the future Arab Moslem tradition. This direct contact is also inherited from the Gnostic tradition of the early centuries of Christianity that will be rejected later as heretical. And we feel the change from an inner personal address to God to a song that is laudative and collective when we enter the monody of before the Gregorian chant and move to the Milanese church. The main chanting more than singing voice develops its monody on the background of a chorus that either hums behind like a continuo, or at times joins in with the main singer. And the Virgin herself is calling the collective and plural congregation to laud her for having fulfilled the Lord’s project. And the singing becomes collective with an opposition or rather succession of male and female voices that joins at times with interesting forms that are monodic and yet play on the tones of the various voices even when singing together on one musical line, with minor variations here and there. Beneventan music pushes further the use of a one voice chorus as contrasted against a deep very somber bass continuo. The contrast is in itself a great improvement in composition. 10/26 The fore-grounded voice is also far from the prosody of the previous schools, the Milanese for example, and reaches an elaboration that is definitely psalmodic, rich and aiming at bringing the congregation up to the necessary elevation to be in contact with the divinity. The chants of the Roman th th church in the 7 and 8 centuries, before the Gregorian age per se, keep some direct address to God, though laudative, and at the same time it develops the bass vocal continuo, though very distant and low, an “ison”, just enough to scale the singing precisely. The Office of the Adoration of the Cross and its “Improperia” introduce what we would consider like an antiphon and its response, but in Greek, a sign of the presence of Greek refugees in Rome then, but also the sign of a new emerging form that the Gregorian chant is going to systematize. This Greek acclamation is threefold and then repeated in Latin. It is the “trisagion”, and we start here finding some purely formal symbolism in this ternary element to refer to the Trinity of God. It originated in th Jerusalem in the 4 century. The last illustration of pre-Gregorian music is the Mozarabic school in Spain, another example of contact and exchange, derivation and continuation from the Middle East melting pot via the Mediterranean tumbler. The various elements thus migrated to and fro and intertwined themselves together to produce over some four or five centuries a wholly new musical art. It’s not so much looking for elevation but rather for some inner elaboration and contact. It sounds more argumentative with oneself as if the faithful individual was trying to convince himself of his capability to reach God. There is thus a slight stepping down from the rather rich psalmodic music of before back to what sounds rather like a prosodic chant contained within a rather narrow range. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU 2- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - LE REGNE DU CHANT GREGORIEN – THE REIGN OF GREGORIAN CHANT We move first to the Gallican tradition. Contrasting voices is reached in the solos, the antiphon and its response, and all these forms we know so well. There is also a cultivation of clarity, even luminosity in the voices and the singing. The effect that is intended is twofold. Each individual voice represents each faithful individual who has to develop his or her personal and unique elevation and peregrination towards divine light but within an always collective procedure and context. The solo voices thus can widen the range of the chant into psalmodic melodies whereas the more collective surrounding elements are closer to a prosodic rather narrow range. We could also think the soloist is the one who is setting the example to be followed by all, the one who is elevating the whole congregation. The third form of Christian sacred music is appearing in these soloists, the aria that will develop little by little to become standard in the Baroque age, particularly Monteverdi, Bach, Vivaldi, with the prosody becoming the recitative, the psalmody the chorals and this new solo performance will develop into the aria (and eventually the duet), i.e. a virtuoso performance. What is important to see is that this third, more elaborate melody is both derived from past forms and is the precursor of further later forms still to come. That’s why it would be wrong to reduce Gregorian music to only a new development of a tradition. It is also opening the way to a future tradition still to come but already appearing here. The fifth track, “Requiem aeternam”, is typical of this new development. Gregorian chant is strongest when it builds a slow elevation in clear singing full of light that takes the faithful collectively to the light of God, to the realm of the Holy Spirit. The aim then is to create a collective communion in the truth of God, in the evocation of God’s just omniscient control of history. There is also a certain level of submission to that rule over life and the world. One form that developed a lot in those centuries was the Requiem, or the evocation of dead people for their burial. What was maybe really new was the generalization of such rites in which everyone took part no matter what social status they had. That’s the emergence of some kind of social norm, standard or even homogenization and death is such an occasion because we are all equal in front of death. The Aquitaine tradition is represented here wit a rite for the Nativity. This is a second line of inspiration, ,what is to become Christmas. But in this tradition some innovations are introduced like the dialogue of the “Introïtus cum tropis”, a dialogue that leads to a unison, hence a ternary structure. A high chorus, a low chorus and a general chorus. The two voices being differentiated first, and then joined, contrasted and merged successively. The sample given here, probably due to the Nativity theme seems to be characterized by a music that climbs up at the end of each sentence and period to reach some high slightly suspended note. Quite different from the somber descending music of the Requiem. It evokes the promise of Jesus’ birth though slightly suspended because the promise will have to be fulfilled in suffering and sacrifice. 11/26 This music sounds optimistic and rewarding if you get into its harmonic communion. The suspended final notes sound minor, and like call to join in to all. Whereas when we want to conclude we end on a tonal note that closes the period in fulfillment. The Cistercians are the first to react against the rich blooming of all kinds of innovations based on the Gregorian standard. This blooming proves the Gregorian standard is widely opening the gates of all kinds of future solutions? The Cistercians worked to bring everyone and everything back to the “truth” of the purity of the origin. It is deeply conservative if not even reactionary. This trend will always be present in the church with a constant thriving contradiction between an old style and a new style? We can note already that as for music the Avignon Popes will be a lot more open than the Roman Popes. Clement VI for instance in Avignon will entertain all kinds of artists, particularly mathematicians (and musicians, the two are the same at the time) who will experiment new forms whereas Rome will stick to its tradition of the Sixtine Chapel with its a capella style. Cistercian music is beautiful but it sounds a lot more contemplative than really inspired by God to go out in the world and make it Christian, i.e. better. They also impose a theory that becomes a dogma against a living tradition, a tradition that is th constantly reborn in innovations. Hence this 12 century dogmatic reform announces a far more stringent th attitude in the 13 century against heresies and heretics. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU 3- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - LE TEMPS DE L’AMOUR COURTOIS – THE AGE OF COURTLY LOVE Trpbadprs, the finders of music, of poetry, of life somewhere too. The life of words, the life of the heart and the life of the soul. Percussions that beat the stampeding rhythm of the village or market place music as well as the slightly less stampeding rhythm of the local noble castles. Pipes and lutes too are accompanying the sad sounding poems or songs. Sad by the linguistic sounds and intonations. It is amazing to see how much sorrow this Oc language can contain and express. The wide-open vowels are so deep, so somber, so easily reverberating with the echoes of the fast fleeing consonants, since only vowels can be sung. This language is essentially vocalic, the consonants reduced to some supporting role. Then the rhythm can be so languorous, a kind of frozen perambulation in some vague and misty limbos between love and death, the little death and the big death, the fear of death and its pleasure. The Galician Cantigas de Santa Maria are at once popular in that sense that they are rooted in the music of these trobadors. Nothing Gregorian in them. But the rather sad singing based on full vocalic sounds supported, more than ever sustained by consonants that are like stepping ledges for the vowels to sing. It is a long sigh, a long never ending breath of belief in life, in God’s fairness and power as seen through the Holy Virgin, a sad fate of salvation and redemption perfectly embodied in the aerial music, so sorrowful in its intonations. The instrumental rendering of some Cantigas with flutes and pipes, percussions and drums gets to some real joy and gaiety and demonstrate that popular music was quite richer in its own tradition than anything available at the time, especially when it was approaching though not quite reaching a double rhythmic line, pipes versus drums. But when the voices come back a capella, we get back to some sad line of storytelling, but when the bells join in we get to some clearer tone and tune without really getting overjoyed. More serenity than happiness. The “Carmina Burana” is popular music too with pipes, flutes, percussions and drums. But here we have a joyful tone that accompanies life and the joy it brings. And the joy is of course often the result of the light or less light mockery of religious music, that is to say Gregorian, that is always drowned in some whirling, twirling, tumbling popular music that seems to associate a ternary rhythm inside a binary tempo, building a six beat measure, three plus three, so that it spins in the most appropriate way and yet with a very strong marching tempo containing the rotating rhythm. The Minnesängers transport us to Germany with clearly articulating and organizing consonants. The singing is also articulated on the consonants and the syllabic tempo they create. We can here and there hear the polyphony that is said to have been born in this context, invented or discovered by Adam de La Halle. One thing is missing in this approach of popular music. It is the unitary element that makes it one, both as music and as dramatic tale, even when there are no words, the dramatic dimension being more referred to and evoked than actually told. The atmosphere created by the music is enough to send us on the right track. When words accompany the music there is an original tone of certainty, of absolute power in the certitude that God is there supportive and helpful. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU 12/26 4- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - LES PREMIERES POLYPHONIES (XII-XIIIe SIECLES) – THE BIRTH OF POLYPHONY Polyphony is here shown as being born in Aquitaine and coming directly from Gregorian music in which two tones associated to two different voices can evolve along parallel lines that are yet divergent or differentiated in their melodies. Parallel yet different. And it is more than the use of a simple vocal continuo behind a main voice as we have seen before. Here the two voices have two melodic lines that are coordinated and the intervals between the notes of each one are part of a melodic alliance or of the melodic construction. The shift from South to North is also the move from a deeply Romanesque country to the world that invented Gothic architecture. Romanesque art is that of a horizontal peregrination, of a long horizontal perambulation from one stage to the next, one station to the next, following the deep forces of Mother Earth, the “wuyvre”, towards the light of truth, the word of God, the water of life. Gothic art corresponds to a different vision of life, the vision of a world that has to look up to see the sun, absent so much all around the year. A sun man does not have to protect himself against, because it is pale, but a sun we long for during the long cold months from October to April or May every year and then a sun we have to valorize when it is arrived. That created a vision that must elevate the faithful. Gothic art is the architectural realization of a vertical elevation towards the light of God, the sky, heavens, the vertical elevation of the inner soul that is helped in its ascension by the music that builds the serenity necessary to receive the light of God, the serenity that will enable our soul to climb the degrees up to heaven, to alight and soar up to the sky. This inner serenity enabling the elevation to God’s truth is perfectly expressed and embodied by the Notre Dame School that is composing music for the big Gothic cathedrals that inspire the music with their Gothic-ness. In many ways polyphony is also an essential part of this Gothic art, is no longer an individual peregrination towards the Eastern light of the rising sun in the choir of the Romanesque church but a collective pilgrimage up to God’s knowledge and truth. I must admit that the “Mass for Christmas Day” given here is rather ordinary and lacks the creativity we could find in the poignancy of corresponding Romanesque southern art. This Gothic northern art though introduces variations on vowels to amplify them due to the fact that Oil language or Northern European languages are essentially consonantal because the vowels are essentially closed and very frontal, as opposed to the open and guttural, laryngeal vowels of Oc language and Southern European languages. This seems to be the best part of this polyphony: one or two or more long vocalic variations on the background of a continuo. Brittany brings another treatment. We are here again in Romanesque country but the language is Celtic and that produces the cultivation of another sonorous world. Short vocalic variations but with essentially open front vowels like /e/ sounds and that opening of front vowels creates a resonance that is in many ways purifying for the individual soul, and introspective for the individual himself who seems to be contemplating God in his own heart. Neither the Romanesque horizontal peregrination of Oc culture, nor the Gothic upward pilgrimage of Oil culture, but an inner construction and exploration of one’s own soul that is in the image of God and enables us to contemplate God in our own soul. The polyphony is often two parallel voices that are mutual echoes and differentiating reflections of each other. The Montpellier motets are new in the fact that three or four voices can get together and in the fact that the general allure is neither religious nor a direct experiential treatment. Here it is not unison nor unity that are looked for, targeted, but clear distinction , differentiation, and unity can only come from the respect of that diversity. No artificial unity building, neither Romanesque nor Gothic music, but rather the construction of a whole with different elements used for and in their differences. This approach is new in the Middle Ages and already announces real polyphony that will no longer contrast or make complementary different voices, but make them antagonistic, contradictory, diverse but also needed as such to build some aesthetic unity. I think this is a heritage from the Cathars and the heresies that were struggling for differences to be recognized and accepted. I even think the crusade against the Cathars did not eradicate that need for differentiation. In fact it may have been transferred to music, among other arts. The Salisbury section takes us to England where chorus singing was being born. The polyphony there was clearly artistically oriented to create a chorus construction in which voices are both different and merged together. Different but merged together and yet merged together without being blended into one sole mash or homogenized into one unison. The English invented chorus singing which has been one of the longest lasting form of polyphony. What is most important here is not the particular harmony lines of each voice but the distance between the voices that makes them both come together without blending and differentiate from one another without breaking the unity. 13/26 Dr Jacques COULARDEAU 5- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - LE SIECLE DE L’ARS NOVA (XIVe SIECLE) – ARS NOVA AND THE 14th CENTURY « Le Roman de Fauve » is popular, provocative, very caustic both in the French words and in the music that is both a lot lighter than what we have seen so far and based on dancing more than plain singing. It expresses the new countryside after the plague, or maybe even during the plague if we believe Murnau’s Faust. Life is being rebuilt beyond the catastrophe without the help of God or whatever. The great th apocalyptic plague of the 14 century, demographic overpopulation, heresies and rebellions, repression and inquisition dominate the vision of this century and as an alternative there can only be life and its own inner energy and life means living together and that’s what is expressed here: the joy of living, the pleasure of being alive, singing, dancing, drinking, eating, loving. God is losing more ground in that surviving world after all the difficulties of the century than expected. Maybe because the church is getting drowned into “danses macabres” and other celebrations of death and victimizations of the victims as those responsible for the horror. We also have to consider the migration of the popes to Avignon, in South France, that encouraged exchanges across the whole of Europe, South and North, East and West. It also favored the development of polyphony with the help of the mathematicians-musicians gathered there by the popes, particularly Vitry. Polyphony then penetrates the ordinary of the mass and the “Mass of Tournai” is the first polyphonic one. It varies the styles especially by playing on rhythms and tempos that are no longer parallel from one voice to the other, even if the general tempo is the same. The variations on the “a” of the “Amen” of the Gloria is typical. Within the common tempo each voice has its own sub-rhythm and the general tempo can also have moments when it yields, temporarily, for sure, to another contrasting rhythm. This continues and produces a very luminous music definitely oriented upwards toward the light of God, a wide open human cup to receive that light being poured from God’s cup. We could even push the metaphor to comparing the vastly open “a” variations as gaping mouths plugged on that stream of divine light. Guillaume de Machaut is another story. He is one of the courtly love poets in which the knight makes himself humble in front of the dame he has vowed to serve . Machaut though represents the first step of a radical change. His vocal music centers on the treble voice and not on the tenor voice anymore like in Gregorian music. A shift from the “lowest” voice (the bass seems to have been reduced to background continuos in Gregorian times and to be rather absent from Machaut’s compositions). Exceptionally the contra-tenor occupies the central position, prefiguring what will come later when altos or contraltos are the central male voices along with the sopranos as the female vocal center. The meaning of that evolution is difficult to find and it will make women more and more necessary, though they are banned or at least extremely limited in arts and on stage at the time, when higher voices were of course sung by children. In Italy Ars Nova consecrates the supremacy of the upper voice but tries to create consonance and even euphony, rather than the French Style iso-rhythm, and that leads them to working with thirds rather than fourths or fifths. That reduces the contrastive effects and augments the melodious and fluent texture of the music. At the end of the century music is confronted to an impossible choice. Either to transform Ars Nova into a norm and it will die by desiccation, or to open it to synthesis with new forms still being born, an eclectic procedure that will dissolve Ars Nova into a synthesis that may eventually produce the next phase. The music of this time is quite surprising in its narcissistic self-generation of itself inside itself. Track 21 “Fumeux fume par fumée” is typical. The text is entirely built on the word “fume” that is multiplied and diversified into “fumeux”, “fume”, “fulmine”, “fumeur”, “enfume”, “fulminer” to end with a completely f-less line that expands the danger and the possible loss: “pourvu qu’il garde son intention” [provided he keeps his direction; note I changed the translation of the booklet because I considered the latter bad]. And the music is really that of a rat trapped in a pot and running around looking for an exit that does not exist. But what is the direction he is supposed to keep in this hardly completely ripe and completed music. England is of course another story. They develop the “descant” or “dechant”, a technique of chorus polyphony to integrate influences without losing its originality. It is quite in phase with Chaucer who invents English poetry. Music practices in England, essentially vocal, both in church or on the village green around the maypole, are totally invested in social practices that are unique in Europe and that preserves their music style that remains choral and not only vocal. Track 25, “Edi Be Thu”, is original in the fact that it is a duet of two similar voices of the same range. 14/26 The rendering in this recording is contrasting the two very similar voices by their harmonics that emphasize the fact that they sing two different melodies or melodic lines. It is based on a descant at the third, associating descant and third. That style can be found both in religious and popular music showing how deeply the English have integrated religion in their daily life, which is still true, even if it has declined a lot. There is no opposition between the two realms. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU 6- LES TRES RICHES HEURES DU MOYEN AGE – A MEDIEVAL JOURNEY – HARMONIA MUNDI France - A L’AUBE DE LA RENAISSANCE (XVe SIECLE) – THE DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE (15th CENTURY) Strangely enough, this CD concentrates on England and Spain, though it opens with the Flemish Ciconia who is Flemish by birth and youth but Italian in his adult career. The first tendency studied here is the English tradition of choral singing with Christmas Carols and Marial Polyphony. That is quite still in the tradition of the Middle Ages. We can only consider that this choral singing is the melting pot out of which the th English madrigal will come in the 16 century, codified, recognized and valorized by Henry VIII. These Christmas Carols are centered on the Virgin Mary and on the new cult of Saint Anne, Mary’s mother. The interest for Mary is in many ways in the tradition and yet the extension it takes is of course announcing what it was going to become with Monteverdi. Strangely enough the Virgin will also be one essential stake of the Reformation and England will play a role along that line. But musically it is the choral technique and genre that are interesting. We can even discover a canon in track 5, what will become a fugue later on. This track is dedicated to Anne, the virgin mother of Mary, the virgin mother of Christ. That parental structure can justify that form of the canon. The piece though associates the various possibilities: a fugue or canon, several voices all of them and each of them following their own lines and building a rich polyphony, and some moments when the various voices are unified in a rare unison. That choral singing in its typical English development is based on the contrasting and at the same time complementary voices. It is this contrasting-complementary architecture that is unique and that is based on centuries of choral singing in churches, universities and many other institutions, and this tradition is still an essential and fertile soil in which English music develops. And yet we have to point out the difference from the motet tradition that is polyphonic too, but a polyphony that tries to create a unified atmosphere or coloration, with a voice being the continuo of the other or others, like in track 9 that is a motet. In the English choral singing tradition, the different voices are rhythmically parallel at times only, and quite often they rhythmically syncopate one another in the most astonishing and impressive way. Spain is another story. It innovates because pure instrumental music is developing there. The instruments that have practically always been used to accompany singing (like the millenniumold harp) and at times (for percussion, drums, etc. to accompany the marching of troops or ceremonies and rituals, become independent. They have to build their solos as if they were voices and then they play together, one instrument being the continuo of the other or others and there too the form has to be invented and instruments having very different harmonics the contrastive-complementary architecture is used, thus going the same way as choral singing in England. In the same way counterpoint and syncopation will come here and there to give depth to that instrumental music that has no value since the value has to be defined in its relation to God’s teachings and words are there to provide this dimension. Instrumental music call for formal developments that can only be divine with the consideration that it reflects the unified variety and contradictions of God’s creation. Music is then the voice of the divine in the creation. And yet that will increase the formal dimension of this music. Johannes Ockeghel’s Requiem is admirable because of its extremely rich polyphony. But the tone is different. The contrastive-complementary architecture is more contrastive than complementary. It aims at building a multi-vocal polyphony in which the voices are actually set one against the others to deepen the lament, the mourning that provides the main tone. A divergent music that creates multiplicity and thus amplifies the lament and dirge by turning it into a kaleidoscopic multifaceted evocation of suffering and mourning. And this Requiem does not contain one note of hope, of freedom in that absolute subservience of life to death. We close this period with lute music and Italy. Marco dall’ Aquila. Instrumental this music develops its own melodious harmony, its own singing or chanting that can even change tempo from one moment to the next. The music can do it because the instrument permits if we use all our fingers to play on all the strings. Far from accompanying, it can develop along its own formal and technical lines. Once again it is quite visible that we have left the medieval divine definition of beauty to enter a formal contrastive-complementarydivergent-convergent definition that comes from the all-inclusive truth and creation of God, but goes beyond 15/26 because the beauty is in the all-inclusiveness itself and its architecture and not in the image of God’s truth and creation it was supposed to be. Then there is no diabolical note or interval anymore. Is it emotional, evocative of a feeling or accusation, intense in effect? That is THE new question. We are slowly moving towards the Renaissance. We are no longer singing the love of God but our love for God, or whatever hero we are going to choose. We are becoming the source of the music, its beauty and its force. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU AMAZON.CO.UK – AMAZON.COM A good tool but short on explanations, 30 Mar 2008 Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) This review is from: The Richest Hours of the Medieval Age - A Medieval Journey (Audio CD) This set of six CDs is supposed to take us through the music of the Middle Ages from before Gregorian Chant to the Renaissance, but also from Byzantium to England, from the Mozarabic and Christian Iberian Peninsula to Germany. Note the Slavonic, Scandinavian and Irish traditions are missing. In fact the orthodox tradition is practically absent. These CDs insist on the fact that Gregorian music is derived or invented from traditions coming from the Middle East, what has become in the 7th and subsequent centuries Islam, or part of Islam, via Byzantium and Mozarabic Spain. But that is not enough again. The Hebraic tradition is strangely absent and with it the connection to Sumerian and old Indo-Iranian traditions that are totally absent. It also neglects the fact that the Gregorian tones are obtained from the Greek reduced scale doubled from five degrees to ten. In fact it provides us with a lot of examples of music from these centuries but does not enter details, among other things that singing was a practice that was common in monasteries and convents, but without mixing sexes. High tones had to be sung by children or young teenagers on the male side. Low tones could plainly not be sung on the female side. We will of course regret here the total absence of women in these CDs, I mean women of the Middle Ages of course, particularly Hildegarde von Bingen. These CDs though show very well the apparition of Gregorian monophony from the prosody and psalmody of before, though they do not identify the two styles yet very clearly differentiated at the time. On one side antiphons and responses, on the other side the chorals that are always built on a single harmonic line. Different tones, when they sing together, sing parallel lines or they sing one after the other, alternating their singing. Polyphony appears from there and will develop along different models from one geographical zone to another. The Romanesque tradition is that of a horizontal peregrination to the light of God in the Eastern Choir of the church and the rising sun, a peregrination of a whole congregation that collectively sings in unison. Romanesque Brittany will develop a polyphony that will be introspective and leads to meeting God in one's divine soul, even if that sounds Gnostic and it might very well be. The Gothic tradition is that of a vertical elevation to heaven, an elevation which is an individual experience conveyed by the architecture and a polyphony that makes everyone find their, his or her, own voice, tone, melody up to the sky and God's light there. The English tradition known as Norman or Tudor gothic is that of chorus singing, the different voices building a complex musical architecture with the different melodic lines of the different voices. The CDs provide the musical pieces showing that but not the details and the Slavonic tradition is totally absent. Then these shortcomings explain the rather artificial shift to the Renaissance. It Is not clearly said that any innovation is both a continuation and a "revolution" though the Ars Nova school should have led to this simple idea. This means an evolution is the result of many contextual elements but there never is anything like a brutal break or change. It is always an innovation that springs up from a tradition it does not reject completely. The Renaissance is thus the result of the Middle Ages. But that has a retrospective consequence on the Middle Ages themselves. If they could produce the Renaissance they must have been less dark than many people still pretend. And here these CDs do not integrate Umberto Eco's vision of beauty. As long as beauty was understood as divine, the music could only reflect it and the basic element was that good and evil were integrated in the creation, equally but also in a certain way homogeneously: the creation was one and contained both good and evil. This explains the long tradition, and even the Cistercian reactionary conservatism, of the unison as the target of all compositions. When differences started being seen as contrastive and having to be used in order to build a contrastive architecture, beauty no longer was in the homogenized unison, no longer was 16/26 divine but purely musical. Then instrumental music became possible, chorus singing became possible, the Renaissance became possible. Beauty was no longer divine but aesthetic. These CDs provide the music that shows this reality but not the explanations. We are kind of alone in front of this music. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU AMAZON.FR Vaste panorama qui pèche du côté explication, 30 mars 2008 Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) Ce commentaire fait référence à cette édition : Les très riches heures du Moyen Age - A Medieval Journey (CD) Ces six CD proposent un panorama musical de la période pré-grégorienne à la Renaissance, mais aussi de Byzance à l'Angleterre, et de la Péninsule Ibérique Mozarabe et Chrétienne à l'Allemagne. On notera tout de suite que la tradition slavonne est totalement absente et la chrétienté orthodoxe parfaitement ignorée, ou presque. Ces CD insistent sur le fait que le chant grégorien est dérivé de la musique du Moyen Orient et mozarabe, donc d'une influence qui à partir du 7ème siècle est islamique. Mais étrangement ces CD sont muets sur la tradition hébraïque pourtant fortement liée à la chrétienté naissante qui en est issue, et au-delà sur les traditions sumériennes et indo-iraniennes dont toute la musique du Moyen Orient, de l'Islam et de l'Europe est issue. De la même façon l'absence de détails sur les tons grégoriens fait que les CD ignorent qu'ils sont construits sur la gamme grecque « réduite » doublée et donc sur une gamme de dix degrés au lieu de cinq pour les Grecs. Ici à nouveau ces CD ne signalent pas que le chant grégorien était d'abord et avant tout une pratique monastique ou conventuelle. Du côtés des moines les tons hauts étaient tenus par des enfants ou de jeunes adolescents, alors que du côté des religieuses les tons bas ne pouvaient pas être honorés, du fait de la stricte séparation des sexes. On remarquera d'ailleurs que ces CD ignorent totalement la musique des femmes et en premier lieu Hildegarde von Bingen. L'apparition du chant grégorien montre bien comment se développe une monophonie et que si plusieurs tons sont utilisés en même temps par plusieurs voix, les lignes mélodiques sont absolument parallèles. On cultive l'unisson. La polyphonie dérive de là mais suivant différentes hypothèses. L'art roman était en parfait accord avec l'unisson grégorien. Pérégrination collective de la congrégation unie des fidèles vers la lumière de dieu dans le chœur oriental tourné vers le soleil levant. Le roman breton produit une polyphonie introspective où chacun recherche en lui à entrer en contact avec dieu dans son âme, parcelle divine de l'homme. Cela est en partie gnostique. L'art gothique par contre qui est fondé sur l'élévation que ce soit avec son architecture ou sa polyphonie élève chaque fidèle vers la lumière de dieu dans le ciel. La solution anglaise est celle du chant choral, architecture subtile des diverses voix différenciées et contrastées. Il manque là encore la tradition slave et orthodoxe. La liaison entre le « projet » religieux ou théologique des périodes médiévales successives du roman au gothique et au normand-tudor anglais n'est pas posée et cela rend la transition à la Renaissance artificielle, sans il est vrai parler de rupture véritablement. L'Ars Nova permet d'étudier cette transition. L'Art de la renaissance est directement issu de l'art du Moyen Age par une innovation qui permet de passer de l'unisson grégorien à la mise en contraste et à l'architecture vocale et instrumentale (cette dernière totalement inexistante avant) des voix et des instruments. On passe d'ailleurs des tons aux voix. Mais c'est là ne pas intégrer l'approche d'Umberto Eco et c'est bien dommage. On passe d'une vision de la beauté comme divine et donc la musique ne peut que refléter la beauté divine de la création qui est une et contient le bien et le mal en un équilibre unitaire absolu. D'où le culte de l'unisson qui reflète cette unité de la création divine, de l'intention divine et de la congrégation qui avance unie vers la vérité divine. On arrive avec la polyphonie à une démarche qui mène à la Renaissance quand les voix sont contrastées, opposées, construites dans leurs différences. La beauté n'est plus une et divine. Elle est devenue esthétique et peut être multiple. Il n'en reste pas moins que ces six CD propose un panorama complet de cette longue période de dix siècles, même si les explications et détails sont négligés au profit de simples descriptions formelles des pièces musicales. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU 17/26 SUZANNE HAIK VANTOURA - CD - LA MUSIQUE DE LA BIBLE REVELEE That music is outstanding in all possible ways, but we cannot agree that it is the melting pot in which European music was born and out of which it evolved. This is the negation of several elements. 1- the separation (both continuation and antagonism) between the Semitic and Indo-Iranian traditions proved archeologically in many ways beyond the simple linguistic separation. The Ancient Testament is full of the rivalry with and against the northern civilization that was going to nurture the Indo-European languages and cultures. 2- This Indo-Iranian tradition, the Avestan tradition for example, is also based on the common identity of the poet and the priest, what some name the professional of language. All sacred texts, as far back as we can go, are poetical texts and they were necessarily recited and sung by the poet thousands of years before being written down and then read by the poet-priest. 3- The Sumerians had 11 string harps and thus knew how to tune them, which can only be done if the sequence of fifths is known: in other words the Indo-European and Hebraic traditions might come from an older common tradition. 4- Christianity was born from the zealot mould of Judaism represented by James, the brother of Jesus, but it took a rift to produce Christianity and that rift came from Saul-Paul, in alliance with Peter, John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and a few others. And this rift was the dropping of the Hebraic language, the shift from Aramean to Greek and Latin, the dropping of circumcision and food control. I can’t imagine such a rift could have kept the music of an old language or even the modern Aramean version of it when it dropped the language itself and the fundamental rules of the Jewish religion. I do not say the Judaic tradition has not passed in a way or another into the European Christian tradition, but there are other traditions and sources behind European music that we would be badly inspired to neglect. th And I would be very cautious in considering the similarity between 16 century madrigals and Hebraic psalms. First we may be exporting our culture retrospectively into the Hebraic tradition. Second a similarity is not a proof of filiation. Two traditions can produce some similar forms, or one tradition can reinvent or re-discover something another tradition had discovered or invented millennia before. The hypothesis of a filiation is interesting though and has to be explored along with other hypotheses. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU OCKEGHEM – REQUIEM – ENSEMBLE ORGANUM – MARCEL PERES – HARMONIA MUNDI ème Un requiem du 15 siècle est un rare plaisir, qui plus est dans la tradition franco-flamande terriblement contemplative de l'intérieur de l'âme confrontée à la mort de l'autre qui est aussi nécessairement notre propre mort surtout dans cette région disputée par tant de puissances et dans le siècle qui suit le ème déclenchement de la Mort Noire, la grande peste du milieu du 14 siècle. L'Introït qui réunit à la fois un premier Requiem en avant et en après d'un psaume court est fort impressionnant. Le Kyrie joue sur les voix avec une voix haute qui crée comme un appel à l'élévation. L'Epistola est sur un ton beaucoup plus grégorien, voix unique basse et qui sonne comme une longue antienne qui sied fort bien à la lecture d'une lettre de Saint Paul qui est comme la voix de l'église. Le ton neutre et monocorde donne de la grandeur et de l'autorité à la lecture. Dans le Graduale les voix basses sont comme le continuo de la voix haute, la voix implorante de la Vierge comme celle qui va plaider la cause du mort auprès de l'autorité suprême. La longueur de la pièce en fait une lamentation qui de phrase en phrase sonne de plus en plus triste. Le Tractus donne un rôle plus important à la voix seconde en hauteur qui prend un ton plus optimiste, plus élevé, plus élévateur. Cela donne une certaine sérénité en ce qui concerne la rencontre avec Dieu, la confrontation au juge suprême. C'est cette sérénité qui donne le courage d'aller à la mort la tête haute et le cœur léger, même si le poids des fautes du mort, nos fautes, est considérablement plus lourd que ce que nous pouvons imaginer. Et ce doute se ressent dans la troisième partie de cette pièce où la voix la plus haute reprend le dessus, au moins à égalité avec la voix plus basse. 18/26 Cette polyphonie est fortement expressive dans le contraste des équilibres ou déséquilibres des voix. L'unisson plus homogène de la phrase finale recrée une certaine sérénité, du moins une confiance dans la justice divine. L'Evangile de Saint Jean sonne alors dans son solo bas comme cette parole de Dieu que personne ne peut éviter, à laquelle personne ne peut échapper, l'annonce de la résurrection est toujours aussi l'annonce de la seconde venue du Christ pour la résurrection finale des hommes pour le jugement dernier. Le texte prend même certaines variations plus orientales, plus slaves peut être, une étrangéité forte que cet évangile a par rapport aux autres. L'Offertorium nous ramène à un son fort, plein et riche, un son de communion dans le mystère profond de l'office religieux, la descente réelle de Jésus parmi les fidèles dans cette offrande symbolique du sacrifice. Un ton montant général mais modéré donne cette élévation nécessaire pour être en communion avec ce miracle de la foi qui donne corps à Jésus dans l'offrande symbolique. Ce ton domine dans le verset associé à cet Offertorium. Le rythme fort lent de la pièce engage chacun à se reposer dans la certitude de la présence du Seigneur, de s'en remettre à sa justice et à son pardon. Le Praefatio qui suit sonne comme cette voix qui vient de l'au-delà, l'au-delà de l'autorité ecclésiastique, voire eucharistique, mais aussi l'au-delà de Dieu, immense et omnipotent par rapport à notre petitesse et notre impuissance que nous ne pouvons que compenser avec notre soumission humble et patiente. C'est dire alors comment le Sanctus dominé par la voix la plus haute est le trait d'union entre nous et la hauteur de ces cieux que nous espérons rejoindre le moment venu, avec le chassé-croisé des voix qui nous font gravir les marches de notre pénitence. L'Agnus Dei prend une pureté absolue dans son plain chant cristallin. Le Communion approche presque d'une forme fuguée qui fait se réunir les divers fidèles dans un acte commun, dans une élévation commune, un recueillement commun. Cela donne au Libera me et Requiem final simplement appelé Responsorium avec une voix soliste grave dans un plain chant est alors comme le sommet d'un pèlerinage, le pèlerinage qu'est la mort qui nous ramène à notre source divine, à notre créateur pour la confrontation finale et totale avec nos fautes dans cette vie. Le Dies illa, Dies irae est alors plutôt une peur de ne pas être à la hauteur de la mission qui est la nôtre dans la vie qui est la nôtre de la naissance à notre mort, cette libération finale dans la vie éternelle. Le ton est si fort et lourd que nous ne pouvons plus douter de la nécessité de penser à notre propre mort qui viendra inéluctablement et qui nous confrontera à notre destinée. Nous regretterons cependant que le texte de l'oeuvre ne soit donné qu'en latin. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU PUERTA DE VELUNTAD – ALIA MUSICA – MIGUEL SANCHEZ The first set of songs are dedicated to the Jewish New Year, and is not conveying joy but repentance for all the evil acts done and performed in the previous year. That is some kind of collective confession or balance sheet of the accounts of the Jewish people with God. If you are careful in your listening you will feel as much as hear and even see the link with traditional Gregorian chant the way it is coming out in this tenth century. The opening of the first piece is just that, but very fast, as soon as the second piece, you shift to the very specific Jewish tradition of Spain, that tradition that pushes its roots into the culture of that peninsula in those days, under the ruling power of Islam. The instruments are Oriental, the singing is typical of that Orient and the music is so Arabic that when we do not understand the language, which is a Semitic language anyway, we could think we are in an Islamic tradition. But in fact this very Oriental and Arabic music turns into a Jewish tradition: the music is not so much in a pure Islamic tone and the singing changes too. We recognize then a style that has survived up to today in various cultural forms of Jewish music in the world. And yet the third piece reintroduces the type of music I have said is at the root of, Gregorian music. Hence three styles mix and merge to build this musical vision, because it is a vision of life and the world, of God too. The vision is a repentance as we said, even if in the second part of the CD we move to Yom Kippur, the great atonement. It is always this vision of the Jewish people, the people chosen by God to be his representative on earth, confronted to their mission and finding themselves far from being able to perform it. That repenting tone is ever present. The chorus in the fifth piece for instance goes slightly beyond this repenting tone and creates some kind of unified collective voice that has some level of serenity. The sixth piece has another tone I have often found in the sacred music people in mountainous Corsica or Sardinia developed a long time ago and have kept through the centuries. This means that this music has retained a deeply popular inspiration coming from the various places where the people have developed their society and life. The first use of a female voice in the eighth piece, 19/26 singing unaccompanied with some short instrumental interludes does not change that general tone, and in a way maybe makes that repenting tone even direr. We reach with her a nearly complete absence of any positive vision of man's life, the absolute and unique certitude of the dissatisfaction of God with our misimplementation of our divine mission. And the ninth piece becomes a dirge, nearly a funeral song, the chorus amplifying the chant into the acceptation of that lot of suffering and repentance, or is it the nostalgia of our union with God before we were separated from him and thrown out of the Garden of Eden. A slightly more positive tone is introduced in the tenth piece, dedicated to Israel, the people of God. But the music and the chant remains very repetitive and in a way closed on a belief and a faith, but no open future or perspective. And it loses all poetic or harmonic approach in the thirteenth piece where the musical psalmodic form is replace by the very flat prosodic form that is some kind of reciting of some sacred text on a monotonous humdrum chanting tone that does not aim at reaching any elaboration at all, as if to speak to God we had to show our submission in such a flattened prose. After a moment of great surprising sonorous creativity in the fifteenth piece, we go back to the tone of the very beginning, a tone which is very close to the Gregorian tradition the Christian world is inventing at that very same time, in this very tenth century in the sixteenth piece and the Oriental tone of the beginning too in the seventeenth piece bringing thus the two main trends of this music to conclude the whole CD, though, as we have seen there are more roots and more branches to that musical tree. Was that Jewish music in Spain at the time the melting pot of many traditions or already a salad bowl of the coming together of these various traditions? Dr Jacques COULARDEAU SCHÜTZ – DIE SIEBEN WORTE JESU CHRISTI AM KREUZ Le Magnificat est brillant dès les premières syllabes et l'instrumentation d'accompagnement et d'interlude ou liaison est surprenante d'inattendu: l'utilisation des vents de cuivre est brillante de sonorité et de puissance ronde, sonnante et enveloppante. On peut se demander d'ailleurs si ce sont des instruments d'époque ou des instruments modernes tant la facture de ces vents est proche de certains effets de Purcell ou Haendel, au moins 80 ans plus tard. Puis il évolue vers un ton beaucoup plus retenu et introspectif dans son évocation d'Israel pour redevenir dansant et léger avec Abraham et surtout le Gloria final sur des sons de trompettes du meilleur effet. Définitivement un Magnificat de joie et de triomphe. La pièce « Erbarm Dich Mein » est d'un ton immédiatement plus austère, retenu, lent et peut-être solennel dans son introduction instrumentale et l'introduction du chant se fait comme d'un bégaiement de départ, une peur peut-être, une crainte pour sûr, une insécurité définitivement qui exprime comme de l'humilité, de la soumission devant le Seigneur. Il est vrai que l'allemand permet de travailler des sonorités bien différentes du latin, même si l'Ensemble Clément Janequin donne de cette langue une version un tantinet trop claire, latine en quelque sorte. Le retour au latin avec « Quemadmodum Desiderat » amène un ton de lamentation si traînante, si allongée, si horizontale, si langoureuse et abandonnée que l'on sent une inspiration qui ne peut en rien être méditerranéenne ou catholique. On sent monter le baroque allemand dans cette langueur languissante. Et toutes les voix sont égales dans cette alanguissement, hommes comme femmes, sans basses, il est vrai et sans voix très hautes. On est dans une sorte de moyen terme de tous les paramètres. Et puis sur la fin il y a comme un démarrage, une accélération, une volonté de décoller du ras des pâquerettes pour découvrir quelques hauteurs aériennes, mais sans jamais vraiment s'envoler. L' « Anima Mea » reste dans ce ton en forme de maelstrom de surface, comme une espèce de marécage vocal et musical qui ne semble pas arriver à trouver sa voie vers le ciel même si un sursaut temporaire apparaît ici et là. L' « Adjuro Vos » aurait pu être un point de départ mais il ne fait que poursuivre le ton antérieur. Et ce ne sont pas les trompettes qui arrivent à arracher cette pièce à la glaise de la soumission à une sorte de prédestination à laquelle on ne peut en rien échapper. Où est le libre arbitre, la liberté de la foi, la force de l'âme quand on est ainsi une coupe largement ouverte à la lumière de Dieu et rien d'autre que ce réceptacle qui prend ce que Dieu veut bien y déverser. La pièce suivante « Ach Herr, Du Schöpfer aller Ding » joint le sens des mots à ce ton musical. Dieu n'est plus qu'un verseur de tout ce qu'il veut bien verser et l'homme n'est plus que cette cuvette en plastique sans valeur, sans choix, sans âme, car comment peut-il y avoir une âme sans épine dorsale, sans colonne vertébrale. Et commencent « Les sept paroles du Christ en croix ». Cela commence comme une immense mélopée si larmoyante, si lamentante que l'on a le droit de se demander si cette vision de Jésus en croix 20/26 n'est pas lamentable. Où est la foi de la rédemption, où est la joie de la rédemption, où est la force de la volonté d'être digne de son Dieu, et non pas seulement cette bouche qui boit à l'entonnoir de Dieu. La Symphonia d'après l'introduction de cette pièce est, me semble-t-il, un point ou deux trop lente ce qui la rend funèbre alors qu'il s'agit de transmutation d'un vulgaire supplicié en Christ de gloire, une gloire qu'il a gagné sur sa croix. Il est sûr que l'on regrette le courage d'un Haendel devant les héros de la foi, comme David, qu'il rend avec un alto dont la voix est céleste et glorieuse à la fois, tandis qu'un ténor est funèbre. Il ne dépasse pas sa douleur, ce Christ là. Il n'atteint pas la rédemption. Il est à jamais englué dans sa souffrance et sa mort. Il est un homme et certainement pas le Fils de l'Homme. Par contre faire de l'un des évangélistes une soprano est plus que surprenant. Les évangélistes sont des hommes, pas des femmes, sauf à croire que Marie Madeleine était une évangéliste, ce qui n'est guère très catholique, ni orthodoxe. Je suis sûr que l'on aurait pu trouver un homme soprano. Mais le plus triste est Jésus et l'interprétation que l'on a là. C'est un Jésus sans âme vraiment, soumis, servile même. Chacune de ces paroles est un cri contre le supplice, contre l'injustice, un cri contre la mort qui prépare la suite et Schütz en fait des cris de chat torturé à qui on a enlevé les griffes et les dents. La seconde symphonia n'est pas meilleure que la première. C'est une marche funèbre qui donne de cette mort une vision sinistre. On peut toujours me dire que c'est l'esprit luthérien ou protestant, je n'accepte pas cette vision du Christ en sac à viande, que ce soit le fait de Schütz ou des interprètes. On peut chanter cette pièce autrement. La pièce suivante « Meine Seele erhebet den Herren » s'anime un peu. Va-t-on s'élever vers une vision de la rédemption salvatrice? Certes un peu, mais on est loin du magnificat du début. Mais les trompettes se réveillent et une certaine joie réapparaît, y compris avec quelques 'fifres' et flûtes à bec, mais revient à un ton plus neutre, plus pâle, et les échos triples de la voix ne mènent qu'à une plénitude assez réduite qui apparaît plus comme une auto-consolation plutôt qu'une vraie élévation. Et le tout se termine avec « Die mit Tränen säen » qui retombe dans la lugubre lamentation, la funèbre soumission, qui ne trouve qu'un ersatz de sérénité, ici plus larmoyante que communiante. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU CHANTS DE LA LITURGIE SLAVONE – SLAVONIC LITURGY – CHŒURS DES MOINES DE CHEVETOGNE “Heirmi of the Canon” is a surprising – for us Western Christians, if we are Christians – form of evocation of God. The contrast between the tenor voice and the bass, deep bass creates a conflictual sound landscape that becomes an architecture of the soul. The tenors sing the beauty of God, of the mission Moses and so many other prophets got on earth, and the deep bass – and the deeper the more so – reveals the power of God that inspired the prophets in their words as much as in their deeds. The two together reflect our own position confronted to the truth of the prophecy and the demanding strength of God. Then the tyrant’s impious provocations and Daniel’s enigma solving power are little since they are God’s plan, and yet a lot for the very same reason, to make God’s people react, reach up to the sky. The tyrant is needed to provoke and justify the prophet’s answer and lead. Then the coming of Christ and his sacrifice in Jerusalem is the utmost example of God’s design of universal life and man’s fate. The Beatitudes of Saint Matthew evoke the slow rising, and the constant desire of the soul to rise, to the life that is suspended in mid-heavens by our connection to the cross, to that elevation in a suffering that is transfixed and transfigured. All musical sentences end like that, suspended in mid tone, mid scale, mid harmony. And that rising desire knocks on the door, beg for being heard, satisfied, accepted, welcomed into that kingdom of God. The praying priest from the heart of the nave, reverberating into the infinity of its vault finds its earth in the chorus that sounds solid, full, ecstatically serene. That was the great prokeimenon. Then smaller pieces will amplify this search for serenity in contemplation, fullness in communion. The prayer to our father finds the deep bass as the voice of that father anew. The troparion goes in a completely different direction. The music is opening its arms to remain directed towards the world welcoming and greeting people who need us, our prayers, our alms. The Acachist hymn is another story. Dedicated to the victorious general of our armies, hence to God himself, it is a laudative lament that has to praise the victory and mourn the dead, those that were lost along the way and it becomes a dirge at times since it is so deep, so slow, so vast and sad in its never ending accents. The great canon of saint Andrew of Crete amplifies the dirge by lifting it up slightly skyward though this soaring tenor voice is pushing its roots in the deep soil of the bass. That can only lead and open to the glorification of the father. And the Sticharion reconstructs the equilibrium of voices, of aspiring and 21/26 contemplative tendencies, of the light of glory that dresses the suffering of the body into one single salvation movement. That creates such a thick flesh of satisfaction and submission that we can believe in the happiness of the faith in the father of humanity. We can then enter the offertory chant of Easter-eve, the bread as the flesh of Jesus, of God, and the wine as the exhilarating blood of the Christ dripping from his cross of salvation, from the chalice of God. Jesus is entering Jerusalem, the bass sustaining and supporting the mission, the tenors glorifying the sacrifice in the face of the Jerusalem and the Temple he was going to change forever. We feel in that surging power and force the destruction of the Temple programmed – by God – for 70 CE. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU CARLOS MENA ALTO – STABAT MATER Le Stabat Mater de Sances a un ton plutôt rare pour cette pièce. Une douleur et une tristesse immenses et sans commune mesure avec ce que d’autres ont fait, et faire chanter ce Stabat Mater à une voix par un alto donne à cette dimension triste une résonance plus romane que jamais comme si ce Stabat Mater était moulé dans le berceau en plein cintre d’une voûte de cette époque. Schmelzer et ses sonates sont par contre sinon beaucoup plus lumineux du moins un peu plus hardis en dynamisme, plus baroques, moins médiévaux, j’entends une musique pour des salons qui ont quitté les donjons féodaux sans en renier les racines et avec ici et là un morceau plus vif comme une danse de village surgie au coin d’une phrase musicale. Mais le plus surprenant est la voix de Carlos Mena. Un alto qui a comme une densité de voix plus épaisse, plus soutenue, qui nous élève même sans quitter le sol, j’entends une voix céleste qui nous appelle à un cheminement à travers la nef romance de cette musique. On avance à pas feutrés et sûrs. Une voix qui s’accorde à la musique elle-même si merveilleusement dans son latin et cette densité d’ombre qui font éclater la puissance d’un simple cierge, d’une simple voix dans l’immensité soutenue de ce roman qui avance à la route du pèlerin sans s’envoler dans les verticalités parfois excessives d’un gothique qui flamboie alors que cette musique, ce chant rayonnent et rougeoient de foi sans volètements d’ailes d’anges inutiles et qui en apparaîtraient rococo, car cela divertirait, détournerait du but, de la fin à la fois si proche et si lointaine car enfouie au fond secret et divin de l’âme du fidèle. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU SIR GEORG SOLTI – RICHARD STRAUSS – SALOME The story is directly borrowed from Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” originally in French, then translated by Lord Alfred Douglas, alias Bosie, then corrected by Oscar Wilde who introduced some significant modifications. Salome is the daughter of Herodias, present Queen married to Herod, the brother of her first husband and Salome’s father. This first husband was imprisoned for twelve years before being strangled on the Herod’s order. As for such an incestuous situation, we only know Hamlet that could compare. But here the girl discovers the Prophet Jochanaan imprisoned in the cistern. She hears him, demands him to be brought out and she falls in love with him. Nothing sentimental. Purely sensuous, sensual, sexual, animal appeal. She adds to that brutal desire the will of a capricious whimsical princess who does not take no for an answer to any of her commands, orders and demands. When her stepfather Herod discovers the situation he is both frightened and amazed. Richard Strauss slightly rewrites this section of the play by reducing the Jews, Nazarenes and other Biblical tribes to the minimum and concentrating on the challenge that comes when Herod demands his stepdaughter to dance for him. She refuses and finally accepts with the promise of getting what she wants afterwards. She dances the famous dance of the seven veils and then asks for the head of Jochanaan on a silver charger. Herod refuses and proposes instead an emerald bigger than the one Caesar himself has. She refuses. Then fifty of his white peacocks. She refuses Then a whole set of jewels and other rare garments. She refuses. Herod finally yields and sends his executioner down to get the requested head. During all that time Herodias showed extreme hatred for Herod and absolute support for her daughter. The head is finally brought up. Salome little by little, discovering that the head does not respond any more, neither with its eyes nor with its tongue, gets crazy and compensates her loss by the fact that at least she is alive and he is dead. And she finally kisses the mouth and gets insane. She is interrupted by Herod’s order that she be put to 22/26 death. Strauss essentially reduced the strong Jewish and Biblical corpus of references that could have seemed anti-Semite. He also reduces the fear of Herod in front of Jochanaan which makes his attitude become more hatred for his wife than real fear of the apocalypse, the end of the world, the catastrophe that may come from the Prophet’s death. Yet Strauss keeps most of the symbolism of the moon that is like the mirror of who looks at it, like a moonstone of some kind, including its turning red before Salome accepts to dance announcing thus the final drama, the blood that is going to be spilled. But Strauss does a marvelous job with the music of course. Extreme power for the voices and the orchestra that can be extremely expressive both of the sensual appeal Salome is using to get everyone to doing what she requires, and the singer is essential here too, and the biblical power of the end of a world promised by the very presence of John the Baptist, of Jesus who is alluded to behind, and of the end of that Jesus in a public death that will turn the world to a new era. At times that extreme force recesses to let some somber, fascinatingly menacing atmosphere develop with the use of some instruments that can bring up that kind of very low pitched coloration and yet some violin continuo modulating the space of the music with some sound reference. Altogether he manages to use all his Wagnerian heritage and invest the expressivity of the twentieth century that fits so well these dramas that were announcing the first world war and all that followed it, the deflagration of the end of an egoistic world that refused any kind of world governance. We could of course regret the purely linguistic symbolism and music of Wilde’s play, both in French and in English, that is pushed aside by the music itself that is naturally more powerful than the music of the words. But the Jewish argument and dispute in the fourth scene expresses the same feeling as Wilde’s : “Put them all in one bag and dispose of the whole lot”, even if he does not reach the diabolical number of nine different Jews and Jewish tribes. Seven is maybe more divine, Christian especially since the sixth and seventh Jews are two Nazarenes. The eighth Jew is Jochanaan who definitely brings the second coming in perspective with his rank then. Salome’s dance deserves all by itself the greatest concentration and admiration; It is so ahead on its time, so modern, so Viennese and yet tragic, so Wagnerian and yet without the pomposity Wagner so often displays, even at times some touches of exoticism, like the use of punctual percussions in the background of the main orchestration. We feel Stravinsky or even Prokofiev behind, though they are not yet on the musical stage, or hardly. We also feel the war that is already raging in the limelight of the patriotic press and media. And the very long solo of Salome confronted to the head of Jochanann is the announcement of a whole century and the echo of what all inspired people were feeling then, the desire of peace in the very face of its impossibility since the Prophet of peace had been beheaded for the caprice of a whimsical motherland, and in 1915 it was impossible to imagine what the outcome of that conflict would be. Salome is expressing then in her bloody satisfaction the impossibility to see beyond the immediate present. And the end is absolute insanity in an unreal stratospheric music. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU KAREL ANCERL – GOLD EDITION – IGOR STRAVINSKY – LES NOCES – CANTATA – MASS Ah ! Ces Noces de Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz ! Stravinsky en fait une œuvre plus russe que russe, plus russe que moi tu meurs. Et en même temps il y investit une violence, une force, une puissance qui tient du jazz, de la musique nord-américaine la plus inspirée, la plus plongée dans et imprégnée de violence urbaine typique des mégalopoles nord-américaines comme Chicago et New York. Et pourtant le slave, le slavon même, est derrière chaque accent, chaque intonation. Ce mix est sublime et plus puissant que tout ce que je connais dans le genre. C’est probablement une des œuvres où le mix slave et nord-américain est le plus fort, violent, dense, profond. Le piano en basse continue à certains moments est une idée de génie. Le piano comme accompagnement d’une descente mais une descente vers quoi ? Cela rappelle ce qui n’existe pas encore, les moments de descente dramatique des films d’horreur des années 60 et 70. Fritz Lang n’est peut-être pas très loin. Comme quoi rien ne s’invente tout se redécouvre, s’emprunte et se transforme, du moins parfois. Le Repas de ces Noces introduit une dramatisation absolument féroce que l’on ne retrouvera, et partiellement seulement, que dans certaines musiques de Kurt Weill pour Bertold Brecht, ou dans certaines compositions tziganes modernes, bien que fondées sur des traditions anciennes. 23/26 On peut aussi se demander si nous n’avons pas là une influence cosaque, mais encore faut-il savoir ce qu’est la musique cosaque traditionnelle. On retrouve définitivement des accents slavons de certaines liturgies anciennes. On nous dit que c’est une musique de ballet. C’est bien plutôt une musique totale qui pourrait accompagner un film, un opéra, une œuvre dramatique multimédia même. Et Stravinsky se permet même de jouer sur des accents orientaux, même asiatiques ici et là. La Cantata, sur d’anciens textes anglais est loin d’avoir la force de la première pièce. C’est charmant mais sans plus. On est dans la tradition des chants de salon dix-neuvième enrichis d’un certain génie musical, et donc on approche des Schubert et des Schumann, des lieders allemands, mais sans jamais s’élever vers un ciel de dieux courroucés ou de dieus omnipotents. Stravinsky a du vouloir céder à l’ambiance des années 50, être plus anglo-saxon que les anglo-saxons, et pourtant il évite le liquoreux, le trop sucré, mais de justesse. Il est vrai que l’histoire est parfois plutôt tristounette. La Passion de Jésus vue du point de vue de Jésus lui-même manque de profondeur et est construite sur une rime récurrente pendant onze minutes. Cela donne une mélopée plutôt plate où le sort dramatique de Jésus est plutôt réduit à une quête narcissiquement terne d’une issue destructrice comme si c’était là, mais ne fut-ce pas le cas, le summum de l’idéal du martyre. Jésus victime consentante d’une fin dramatique certes mais plutôt complaisante, presque mondaine, et la musique est hélas au niveau de cette répétitive lassitude. Mourir car il n’y a guère d’autre solution, comme un pis aller. Imaginer que la crucifixion est une épreuve sur le chemin de la femme idéale et d’un bal de salon, true love and dancing, est plutôt une réduction que la musique amplifie. Stravinsky était-il alors iconoclaste et irrespectueux ? Question profonde mais sans réponse. Mais il sauve sa réputation avec la sixième piéce de cette cantate qui s’anime d’une vraie vie avec le vent de l’ouest qui ne peut être qu’un vent anti-chrétien, donc un vent diabolique et satanique puisqu’il vient de l’ouest justement, de loin, très loin de la Terre Promise ou Sainte. Mais cet instant de vie retombera dans la répétitive ritournelle d’une fête quasi-foraine, comme un manège de Noël en plein été. On trouve alors que le latin, la liturgie chrétienne catholique ou orthodoxe de la fin de cet enregistrement est hypostatique de recueillement et contemplatif d’aveuglement. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU Listen to these Noces by Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz ! Stravinsky makes them more Russian than they could ever be, more Russian than I you die, won’t you ? And at the same time he invests into them a violence, a force, a powerful might that feels jazzy, bluesy, coming from the most visionary North-American tradition soaked in and impregnated with the urban violence that is most typical of large megapoles like Chicago or New York. And yet each note, each intonation reflects the Slavic and even Slavonic tradition that lurks behind them. This mixture is beautiful and more powerful than anything I know in that line. It’s probably one of the music pieces in which the mixing of Slavic and North American traditions is strongest, most violent, densest and deepest. The piano is at times used as an accompanying bass for a descending movement, but descending where to ? It reminds us of what still does not exist, the moments of dramatic descent in the horror films of the 60s and 70s. Fritz Lang is not very far. We never invent anything new. We only rediscover, borrow and transform, at least from time to time. The Wedding Feast brings in a ferocious dramatization that we will only find again, and only partially, in some of Kurt Weill’s music for Bertold Brecht’s plays, or in some modern gypsy compositions, even if these are based on ancient traditions. We could also wonder if we don’t have here some Cosack influence, provided we know traditional Cosack music. We definitely hear some Slavonic atmosphere from some ancient liturgical composition. We are told it is ballet music. It sounds more like the total music that could accompany a film, an opera, a multimedia drama even. Aind Stravinsky even plays with some Oriental or even Asian coloration from time to time. The Cantata on old English texts is far from being as powerful as the first piece. It is charming but th nothing more. We are in the tradition of 19 century salon singing even if enriched with some genial inspiration, and thus approaching Schubert or Schumann, German lieders, but without ever rising up to a sky of wrathful all-powerful gods. Stravinsky must have wished to yield to the tradition of the 50s, to be more Anglo-Saxon than the Anglo-Saxons, and yet he avoids , though by the split of a hair, oversweet and syrupy pulp. At times the story is truly sad. The Passion of Jesus seen from the point of view of Jesus himself is shallow and built on a recurring rhyme lasting eleven long minutes. It produces a rather flat humdrum chant in which Jesus’ dramatic fate is reduced to a narcissistic lackluster quest for a destructive outlet as if it were, but wasn’t it so, the absolute top of martyrdom. Jesus, the submissive victim of a dramatic end though made pleasant if not agreeable to the socialite public, and the music alas is at this level of repetitive tiredsomeness. 24/26 To die because there seems to be no other solution, as if it were some lesser evil. To imagine that the crucifixion is a trial on the way to true love and dancing, is rather a reduction that the music even makes smaller. Was Stravinsky then an iconoclastic and respectless person ? That may be a deep question but it has no answer. Yet he saves his reputation with the sixth piece in this Cantata that finds real life in the western wind that can only be anti-christian, hence diabolical and satanic, since it comes from the West, from far far away from the Promised Holy Land. But this short moment of life will fall back into the repetitive ritornello of some kind of funfair, like a Christmas merry-go-round right in the middle of the summer. Then the Latin and the Christian or Orthodox liturgy of the Mass is hypostatic contemplation and sightless insight. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU PAUL McCREESH – GABRIELI CONSORT CHOIR AND PLAYERS – VENETIAN VESPERS th A surprising collection of five CDs all turning around one small historical period, the end of the 16 th century and the beginning of the 17 century, around a few composers, Monteverdi and Gabrieli mostly. It starts at once with the style we know as Paul McCreesh’s. A luminous suspension of the music and of the sentences, an internal and contained joy, a dense and optimistic serenity. A reservation and elevation that could be sad though made of confidence, trust, faithfulness, dedication, selflessness and total abandon to God. Yet this style is going to change little by little. On the first CD the certitude the music makes us share is that the path we have chosen is the right one and the destination is just the only one we could target, our Jerusalem. Any doubt is impossible and is just pushed aside by some glorious assertion of the future that is a future of triumph in God and glory in heaven. But Gabrieli in the third CD is going to knock on our door, knock on the gate to that path of certain glory and that knocking is definitely introducing a different tone. Three times three knocks. That’s the beast knocking on the door, the beast that has to turn the Christian trinity into some Solomon’s number and then the apocalyptic beast that is the promise of the end of this world and the coming of the Messianic Jerusalem. But will the final part of this promise ever be held? From that moment the tone becomes somber, very somber, dark and strained. It is no longer confidence but submission, trust but enslavement and the fifth CD with Gabrieli’s Music for San Rocco (1608) brings the triumph of this tone. Solemn sadness nearly sinister or even maybe bleak. It is no longer a chant or a song or some rejoicing but only and exclusively a dirge, a lamentation, a mourning plaintive humdrum at times entombment and the wind instruments are like the trumpets of the angels, they are opening the gates of hell onto earth. And we have to submit, to accept, to crouch in front of this everlasting and overpowering force. The music is highly creative but always in that line and McCreesh’s style of suspended conducting, of aerial mid-air hesitation gives to that message the force of a massage, of a rollercoaster taking us into an infernal ride. Even the Alleluia of track sixteen becomes a crushing experience, like some mockery of joy, some self-satisfied and self-justified submission to a fate that is so dense, so thick that we nearly can’t breathe in that atmosphere. The final Magnificat and the Sonata preceding it could have been gayer and happier but that clear triumphant tone is nearly immediately turned into that crushing humility that makes us be nothing in the hand or should I say the hands of God, the left hand knowing nothing about what the right hand is giving and the right hand knowing nothing about what the left hand is taking. Life is an apocalypse and we have to roll into a ball into the flowing fateful flux of this destruction that may bring some kind of resurrection. But do we still believe in that last step of the divine process? Dr Jacques COULARDEAU VIVALDI – CONCERTI PER FLAUTINO E ARCHI Les concertos pour flûte et autres compositions pour flûte et instruments de la même famille ont souvent été produits pour les jeunes filles que Vivaldi éduquait musicalement dans les couvents féminins pour lesquels il travaillait en tant que prêtre, le célèbre prêtre roux. Sa musique n’a plus de secret pour 25/26 personne car elle est plus connue que les premiers titres du hit parade pop. Mais comme celle de Mozart que tout le monde chantonne, elle est ignorée dans la genèse de sa beauté. La flûte, et autres instruments du genre, est un instrument solo qui ne peut que surprendre dans un concerto avec orchestre. C’est une voix légère, aigue et dansant souvent très haut dans les nuages alors que l’orchestre, même les cordes parfois, est resté au sol, pris par la glèbe. Cela donne à ces flutes et flutiaux une force et une vigueur inouïes alors même cependant qu’elles ne peuvent pas faire preuve de l’amplitude et de la virtuosité d’un violon par exemple et plus tard d’un piano. Vivaldi utilise cela pour en faire un avantage sans égal. La flûte peut ainsi égrainer à l’envie des lignes mélodiques douces ou brusques mais toujours claires et bien définies, note à note, montante ou descendante. Tout alors est dans la clarté de ces sons et dans la rythmique de l’attaque plus encore que des sons eux-mêmes et là Vivaldi va utiliser l’espièglerie de ses élèves religieuses pour affiner encore la pâte de cette musique et la rendre aussi légère que des cheveux d’ange ou du pain azyme. Ne nous y trompons pas Vivaldi utilise toujours ses solistes de cette façon. Le violon permet des mitraillages de notes qui peuvent sauter d’un ou deux octaves s’il le faut. La voix d’un alto est une voix sans commune mesure ni chez les hommes, trop haute, ni chez les femmes, trop mâle (sauf à qui n’entend rien à ces choses-là), et c’est de cela qu’il joue. Et l’orchestre n’est pas là pour briller, l’orchestre est là pour faire briller avec son propre éclat. Plus l’orchestre est éclatant de beauté et de retenue plus l’instrument ou la voix solo sont brillants de beauté et d’exubérance vitale. Enfin la dernière chose qu’il faut dire c’est que Vivaldi était un contemplatif du monde, de la nature, des hommes et des animaux et qu’il savait à merveille captiver leurs rythmes, leurs tonalités, leurs cadences, leurs essences et chaque être a plusieurs essences cachées, en plus de son essence publique, mise en exergue. L’instrument solo donne généralement cette essence visuellement visible et l’orchestre donne toutes les harmoniques cachées de cette essence et ainsi reconstruit la myriade inépuisable de chaque être et chaque moment de la vie. C’est donc un merveilleux moment de musique et il va s’en dire que les interprètes de ce CD sont à la hauteur, vraiment à la hauteur de cette musique et qu’ils sont capables de la hausser aux plus hauts degrés de la voûte céleste. Je ne regrette qu’une chose, que cet ensemble Matheus ne soit pas enregistré sous la voûte de l’Abbatiale de La chaise Dieu où je les ai si souvent entendus. La sonorité certes d’une église, mais d’une simple église, ne donne pas la profondeur aérienne que La Chaise Dieu donne aux anges qui viennent jouer dans son chœur. Ici nous avons davantage le chœur des anges descendus sur terre pour célébrer la naissance de l’enfant Jésus dans une étable. Combien j’aurais préféré les anges chantant l’Ascension en paradis. Mais ce n’est qu’un regret qui me donne un sanglot ? Disons que Jean-Christophe Spinosi me console avec la chaleur d’un cœur de musicien, c’est tout dire. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU 26/26