[SACD-R][OF] Stile Antico - Song of Songs - 2009 (Classical/ Renaissance)

Song of Songs
Stile Antico’s third recording won the 2009 Gramophone Award for Early Music and reached the top of the US Classical Chart. The beautiful and erotic texts of the Song of Songs, a love-poem traditionally attributed to King Solomon, inspired the great composers of the Continental Renaissance to some of their most ardent music. This rich selection traces an emotional arc from the intensity of the Flemish masters to the most vivid, madrigialian motets by Vivanco and Victoria.
What is the Song of Songs? Why is it in the Bible? And why did it gain such popularity amongst Continental composers of polyphony in the sixteenth century? In short, it is a love poem (or perhaps a collection of poems), ascribed to King Solomon, who reigned over Israel between 971 and 931 BC, and after whom the work is sometimes named. The beautiful and often erotic poetry tells of the relationship between the lover and his beloved, traditionally thought to be Solomon and a Shulamite girl. It speaks in colourful and poetic terms of the joys, delights, and the sorrows of their relationship, as well as relating the girl’s dialogue with the young Israelite girls around her. Above all, it consists in rich expression of the love of one for the other, in all its facets.
For many the literal sense of the book alone has not been considered sufficient grounds to merit its place in the canon of holy writ (in spite of the fact that it contains inspiration and wisdom for many an aspiring couple!). Surely it must have a yet more profound meaning! The most established tradition of interpretation reads the relationship between the lover and his beloved as an allegory for the covenant relationship between God and his people. It is a long tradition: as early as the first half of the first century BC Jewish interpreters understood the book as an allegorical account of God’s dealings with Israel; Christian commentators from the early Fathers onwards have continued this tradition, seeing it as referring to the relationship between Christ and his Church, or Christ and the Soul. Such a reading is supported by similar allegories used elsewhere in both the Old and New Testaments.
Yet the surge in the book’s popularity in medieval times, and the resulting proliferation of musical settings, often revolved around the practice of Marian devotion. The so-called ‘Marian interpretation’ of the Song of Songs has sometimes been misunderstood: it is not that the beloved of the poem has ever been seriously understood to refer exclusively to Mary - but rather that, if Mary is revered as the church’s most perfect flowering (as she often was in medieval times), then the poem is about her inasmuch as she ‘represents’ the Church. It is for this reason that the poem was adopted (and often adapted) for use in various medieval Marian liturgies, and seen as prophetic in justifying certain Marian doctrines.
Reviews:
The superb singers of Stile Antico are up to the challenge of presenting all the required moods from pious restraint to melting abandon… A magnificent display of the very best kind of polyphonic music.
BBC Music Magazine
Stile Antico gave us a wonderful sample of Renaissance polyphony from English masters on their previous disc (Heavenly Harmonies - Stile Antico), and now they turn to the other hubs of such music in the C16; the Low Countries, Spain and Italy.
The biblical Song of Songs is a collection of Hebrew love poetry, often explicitly erotic, and as such has echoed down the ages, attracting the attention of musicians even in our own times. Christian Church fathers absorbed the verses as allegories, and they were often used liturgically as a focus for Marian worship.
This Stile Antico programme is an ingenious one, ranging from the early C16th (Clemens non Papa) to works which are in effect polychoral, and thus anticipate the Early Baroque (Guerrero). Groups of polyphonic works are interspersed with short plainchant antiphons from (or adapted from) the Song of Songs, sung by a small group of women. These timeless melismas are palate-cleansing when set against the rich tapestries of interweaving polyphony. Several of the plainchant melodies were also used as the thematic basis for the polyphonic works (as ‘cantus firmus’).
The dozen members of British group Style Antiquo are all in their 20s, and certainly rival a number of well-established choirs in this repertoire, such as Harry Christophers’ The Sixteen. The group has a distinctive sound, however, with a sweet freshness and spontaneity deriving from their chamber music approach (having no conductor). They also prepare their own performing editions for most of the pieces on the recording. Concentration and preparation are remarkable; structure, textural meaning and harmonic movements are all fully worked out for each piece, then translated to a gripping and purposefully flowing interpretation with superbly controlled line-shaping and dynamics. Final cadences are often arrived at with magical effect, truly a ‘coming home’, whether on a climactic note or a gentle diminuendo. It is unusually easy to listen “inside” the transparent textures and hear each individual voice. From the inward stillness of the opening piece by Clemens non Papa to the surging and passionate drama of Victoria’s final Vidi speciosam, these are performances of great depth and vision. It is important to remember that these manuscripts have almost no tempo or dynamic instructions, the performing practices being passed on by imitation from those directed by the composer-singers.
The Harmonia Mundi recording took place in the well-known venue of St Jude-on-the-Hill, London. Its benevolent acoustic resounds with the vocal tapestries, providing an unforgettable multi-channel experience. An immaculate balance is established from the start, and the singers use the sonorities offered by the building with great intelligence. The quietly-sung plainchants seem to be heard from slightly further back, which is very atmospheric. Stile Antico have a surprisingly wide dynamic range which is easily contained in this remarkably natural-sounding DSD capture.
Production values are very high as usual for this label, with beautiful art-work and photography. I was amused by the visual joke of having a photograph of the choir members sitting very formally on chairs around a white room on the booklet cover, while on the booklet sleeve in the digipak, the chairs are empty. There is also a photo of the group warming up with physical exercises before singing. A very informative account of the music is provided, and full Latin texts are supported by translations in English, French and German.
Ancient love-poetry and masterpieces of Renaissance polyphony: the very essence of music. Not to be missed.
Copyright © 2009 John Miller and HRAudio.net