We are pleased to announce auditions for our upcoming 2017-2018 season. We are looking for singers of all voice parts. Interested singers must sign up by June 28th.
2017-2018 SCHEDULE More information about repertoire here
#1: MARIAN MOTETS
Sat Oct 7 at 7:30pm
Trinity Parish Church
609 8th Ave
Seattle, WA 98104
Renaissance and contemporary settings of Marian motets. Featuring England's finest composers Cornysh, Tallis, Tavener, and Jackson.
Rehearsals
Mon Sept 25 at 7pm-10pm
Tues Oct 3 at 7pm-10pm
Wed Oct 4 at 7pm-10pm
#2 POSSIBLE RECORDING PROJECT (Pending funding)
January 2018
I would like to record a CD of new choral music in January featuring the selected compositions for the April 7 concert (to be released at that concert). A fundraising effort will be announced in the next few weeks to raise money for the project.
Interested composers should contact Markdavin at markdavin@vox16.com
#3: LOCALLY SOURCED
Sat April 7 at 7:30pm
Trinity Parish Church
609 8th Ave
Seattle, WA 98104
New music from local composers
We are looking for composers to submit new compositions for this program. Compositions will be included in the CD project in January (pending funding) which will be released at this concert.
Rehearsals
Mon March 26 7pm-10pm
*This rehearsal will be canceled if we record in January 2018
Wed April 4 at 7pm-10pm
Fri April 6 at 7pm-10pm
AUDITIONS
Interested singers are required to sign up for a 10-minute audition slot on one of the following dates:
Singers are required to learn a part of their choice on Lobo's Versa est in luctum and will sing their part with five other singers on the other parts. There will also be a short sight-singing component.
Singers will be evaluated on the following skills:
1. Execution of Assignment (25%)
2. Tone Quality (25%)
3. Intonation (20%)
4. Ensemble skills (singing with others) (20%)
5. Sight-singing (10%)
COMMITMENT
Singers are expected to attend all rehearsals and concerts during the 2017-2018 season.
FEES
Singers pay no fees and are paid a small honorarium. Singers will be entitled to 1/20 of net revenues (ticket sales minus expenses - (sheet music, program printing, building use fee, etc.) This has typically amounted to about $40-$50 per concert and is paid two weeks after each concert.
If the recording project is funded, singers will receive a fee for each recording session.
ABOUT VOX16
Vox16 is a professional chamber ensemble of sixteen singers dedicated to performing unaccompanied choral music from the Renaissance period to the 21st century. An exciting new presence in Seattle’s vibrant choral community, Vox16 was founded in 2015 by director Markdavin Obenza and is part of the Byrd Ensemble's Professional Choral Affiliates Program.
DIRECTOR MARKDAVIN OBENZA has dedicated his career to music. In addition to Vox16, Markdavin is the Artistic Director and co-founder of the Byrd Ensemble, a Seattle-based early music vocal group, and Producer for Scribe Records, an independent record label. He is an active singer and has performed with the Tudor Choir (US) and members of the Tallis Scholars (UK), in addition to the Byrd Ensemble. He is currently the Director of Choral Music at Trinity Parish Church (Seattle, WA).
Vox16 presents MINIMALISM: MUHLY, GORECKI, AND PÄRT
SATURDAY, April 29th at 7:30pm
Trinity Parish Church
609 8th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104
SUNDAY, April 30th at 3:00pm
Faith Lutheran Church
9041 166th Avenue NE
Redmond, WA 98052
GORECKI - Totus tuus
MUHLY - Lord heare my prayer instantly
MUHLY - In One Place
MUHLY - Pater Noster
MUHLY - Recordare Domine
DUGGAN/LYLE - O sacrum convivium
PÄRT - Seven Magnificat Antiphons
PÄRT - I am the true vine
PÄRT - Magnificat
MALLONEE - O Lux
TICKETS
Save $3 by purchasing your tickets in advance
General Admission: $20
Seniors (65+): $15
Students: $10
Purchase tickets here. Your tickets will be emailed to you. Use your receipt as your ticket, or pick them up at will call.
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I can see my music theory professor now, cringing that I’ve labeled Pärt, Górecki, and Muhly as minimalists—this is understandable. Traditionally, we think of Terry Riley, Steve Glass, and John Adams as pioneers of the minimalism movement, so using the same label for the composers on this program warrants some explanation—just because the music contains repetition doesn’t mean it is minimalist!
Minimalism began post-World War II as a response to expressionism. Musically, it was a reaction against the prevailing musical aesthetics—atonal and mathematically generated music by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and the like. Minimalism was a movement to reduce music to its most basic elements. American composers Riley, Glass, and Adams led the new style and paved the way to new music based on patterns and extreme repetition. It would not be unusual to encounter a piece based on one pattern and hear it evolve only slightly over the span of twenty minutes.
Repetition and patterning is an important part of the music of Pärt, Górecki, and Muhly; however, their compositional style is not a reaction against expressionism, but instead emerged in a unique and individual way. Nor is their music committed to patterns and repetition to the same degree. Pärt is perhaps the most dedicated ‘patterner,’ but he is quick to break those patterns if it creates unwanted harmony. So, if they aren’t minimalists, how do we describe their style? Some call Pärt and Górecki ‘mystic minimalists’ or more pejoratively ‘pop minimalists.’ Neither of these labels seem to carry the significance their music deserves, so I hope the purists will bear with me while I include them in the minimalist camp for this program.
Arvo Pärt
For the sixth year in a row, Arvo Pärt has been given the title of the “world’s most performed living composer.” Pärt, born in 1935, is an Estonian composer of classical and sacred music. A prolonged struggle with Soviet officials led him to emigrate with his wife and their two sons in 1980. He lived first in Vienna, where he took Austrian citizenship, and then relocated to Berlin, Germany in 1981. He returned to Estonia around the turn of the 21st century and now lives alternately in Berlin and in Tallinn.
After some time experimenting in neoclassical styles, Pärt decided to use Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique and serialism in his compositions—this displeased the Soviet establishment enough to ban his early works. Pärt, not pleased with his output, went into several periods of contemplative silence, during which he studied choral music from the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. His biographer, Paul Hillier, says, “He had reached a position of complete despair in which the composition of music appeared to be the most futile of gestures, and he lacked the musical faith and will-power to write even a single note.”
Pärt spent years immersing himself in Renaissance vocal music and more generally Western music. Out of this period of musical soul-searching emerged a unique compositional style that informed his music beginning in the 1970s—tintinnabuli (bell-like). The tintinnabuli style is a simple compositional technique that allows for a limited number of harmonies. Imagine the harmonies generated by playing a major scale in the left hand and an arpeggio on the right.
The Seven Magnificat Antiphons (1988; revised 1991), marks only the second time that Pärt set a German text. Perhaps the fact that it was commissioned for the Radio Chamber Choir in Berlin, a group whose broadcast performances reached audiences far and wide, suggested that the vernacular language would be the most appropriate choice. Each of these texts, in its normal liturgical context, functions as the antiphon to one iteration of the Magnificat, sung at Vespers on each of the seven evenings preceding Christmas Eve. In Pärt’s composition, these texts are set simply as a series of seven movements.
Pärt’s Magnificat, composed in the tintinnabuli style, employs drones. The solo Soprano part, singing only the pitch C, provides the tonal center for the piece. Pärt’s setting of the Magnificat, though length and repetition, establishes a sense of timelessness. The half-step dissonances sprinkled throughout alongside the sonorous harmony immediately pull us into a state of contemplation and introspection.
I am the true vine was composed in 1996 for the 900th anniversary of Norwich Cathedral in England. Written for unaccompanied voices, the work offers a twist on Pärt's tintinnabuli technique. Syllables of text are dispersed among the parts in such a way that each part is often often completing another part’s sentence or word. Also, the distribution of the melody among the parts—Bass to Soprano back down to Bass—resembles the vine depicted in the text.
Henryck Mikolaj Górecki (b. 1933) was born in south west Poland to two talented amateur musicians. Musically, the boy developed late, and he enrolled at the conservatoire in Katowice at the age of 22 to study composition. Górecki’s work was not always met with praise. At the 1967 Cheltenham Festival his Refrain (for which he received a prize in Paris) was described: "Players can bang and blow and scrape repeated notes as they wish. The experiment might better have been conducted in private." In London 1978, his music was dismissed as "crude, agitated, often loud and violent". Yet, almost in parallel, Górecki had begun working in a style that could not be more different. His Symphony No 2 (Copernican), from 1972, began a transition towards a more consonant language.
“I think about my audience, but I am not writing for them. I have something to tell them.”
-Górecki
Górecki was a pioneer of modernism in his own country, but, like Pärt, adopted a more pared-down, minimalist style and focused on writing religious music. Totus Tuus was performed at Pope John Paul II’s third visit to Poland, his homeland, in 1987. The outdoor masses were attended by hundreds of thousands of people. Totus Tuus sets a brief prayer to Mary, the patron saint of Poland. Górecki delivers a wonderfully simple but prayerful work for such an occasion.
American composer Nico Muhly (b. 1981) has worked with pop/rock and classical genres. Muhly, only in his mid 30s, is quite the hot contemporary artist. He has worked with Björk and Philip Glass and has composed for the Paris Opera Ballet. Muhly’s sacred music draws from two styles: American minimalism and the Anglican tradition.
Nico Muhly
Muhly’s choral pieces are rarely performed and have not been recorded. Recordare Domine, written for the Tallis Scholars and Peter Phillips, is most unlike the others and favors a more dissonant sound. Pater Noster, a setting of the Lord’s Prayer, draws inspiration from Stravinsky's unaccompanied sacred music, notably his setting of the same text. Lord Heare My Prayer Instantly showcases Muhly’s almost incessant use of triplets in a duple meter, which permeates much of his choral music. Unlike Recordare, Lord Heare and the other choral works on the program are mostly diatonic and feature repeated musical figures. In One Place, a Pentecost Antiphon, incorporates freely sung text; the overall effect is meant, I assume, to depict the apostles speaking in tongues in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
We invited composers to submit music that would pair well with the program. We are happy to present two works: Caroline Mallonée’s O Lux, and John Duggan and Teena Lyle’s O Sacrum Convivium (world premiere performance).
Caroline Mallonée (b. 1975) has been performed internationally, including New York City at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, Tribeca New Music Festival, and the Cambridge Summer Music Festival (UK) and has been broadcast several times over National Public Radio on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion.” Dr. Mallonée holds a Ph.D. from Duke University, a Master’s degree from the Yale School of Music, and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. O Lux is an imitative motet celebrating light. The downward contour represents the light streaming in; the rising line that follows it, the light that raises one's spirits. It was commissioned by the Friends School of Baltimore to commemorate the 225th anniversary of the school’s founding.
John Duggan (b.1963) was a chorister at Westminster Cathedral and studied music at Keble College, Oxford. He is an experienced live-sound and recording engineer in both popular and classical fields. He has written a large body of work for choir, both sacred and secular, including a number of settings of the soldier poets of World War I. He was Creative Arts Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford (2012–15) and is currently composer-in-residence at Leeds Cathedral in West Yorkshire. His music is published by Novello and Shorter House.
Teena Lyle (b.1963) is a percussionist, keyboard player and singer who has worked with many artists including Bob Dylan, Placido Domingo, Robbie Williams, and Gloria Gaynor. She is best known for her touring and recording work with Van Morrison. Alongside her performing, she is developing a career as a composer, artist, and teacher.
The text to O Sacrum Convivium, often attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, illuminates the pivotal role of the Eucharist in Christian life—from the Last Supper, the mystery of Easter unfolds. The sharing of bread evokes the Passion of Christ, the glory of his Resurrection, and the promise of an eternal feast. The power of this imagery lies in the way in which sharing, receiving, passion, grace, and glory intermingle as the divine ingredients in a timeless, celestial banquet. In writing this piece together we wanted to create a beautiful tableau, a piece that arches over performers and listeners like the stone spans of a medieval cathedral, like a field of flowers opening in a time-lapse sequence. The effect is like the gentle roll of waves, where the power builds invisibly in the undertow and then breaks upon the shore of our hearing.
SPANISH MUSIC FOR THE HOUSE OF HABSBURG
A musical exploration of the Habsburg dynasty, featuring Spanish music written for monarchs Charles V and Philip II
PROGRAM
Tomás Luis de VICTORIA - Requiem Mass
Introitus: Requiem aeternam
Kyrie
Gradual
Offertory
Sanctus & Benedictus
Agnus Dei I, II & III
Communion: Lux aeterna
Versa est in luctum
Responsory: Libera me
Intermission
VICTORIA - Magnificat primi toni
Cristóbal de MORALES - Circumdederunt me
MORALES - “Requiem aeternam” from Missa pro Defunctis
Alonso LOBO - Versa est in luctum
Giovanni Pierluigi da PALESTRINA - Nunc dimittis
SINGERS
Soprano
Danielle Sampson
Margaret Obenza
Christina Siemens
Alto
Sarra Sharif Doyle
Joshua Haberman
Tenor
Orrin Doyle
Kurt Kruckeberg
Bass
Peter Lifland
Willimark Obenza
David Stutz
The House of Habsburg was an incredible patron of the arts. During its six-century rule, it shaped the arts world like no other dynasty, employing singers and commissioning composers on an international scale. The program features music by the most prominent Spanish Renaissance composers employed by Charles V and Philip II: Victoria, Morales, and Lobo, and the great Counter-Reformation Italian composer Palestrina.
The House of Habsburg was one of the most influential royal houses of Europe. At the height of its power, the dynasty ruled Austria, a vast tract of Central Europe, Spain, the Low Countries, much of South America, and it occupied the throne of the Holy Roman Empire for nearly three centuries. The Habsburgs held the arts in high regard. In the sixteenth century, the power and wealth of a dynasty were expressed through its patronage of art and science. The most important ruler had to demonstrate that he was also an outstanding patron by commissioning and collecting works of art. Artists employed at the court enjoyed a good income, high social standing, and remarkable freedoms, a rarity during period of religious turbulence. The Habsburg who defined Europe in the Renaissance was Charles V (1500-1558), who ruled Spain and its overseas empire and was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1519.
Music played an important role Charles’s court. Sacred music was sung for the daily services in the court chapel, for special memorial services, marriages and affairs of state that required a solemn ceremony in church. Professional singers and the clergy provided the chapel with music. Members of the court chapel performed many duties, as they were often singer, priest, composer, choirmaster, organist, music teacher, and scribe at the same time. Additionally, the nobility received extensive musical education themselves, often from the members of the court chapel, and learned how to sing and play instruments.
Charles surrounded himself with musicians. In Brussels he had a court chapel of mainly Flemish musicians called the “Capilla Flamenca” which he eventually brought with him to Spain. At his Spanish court Charles formed a larger ensemble, “La Grande Chapelle,” made up of the best musicians from the whole of Europe. The group performed sacred polyphony for voices and eventually secular music with instruments, once it came into style in the late sixteenth century. Charles loved both sacred and secular music.
Composer Cristóbal de Morales (c.1500–1553), a contemporary of Charles, is regarded as the most important Spanish composer before Victoria. The preference by Pope Paul III of employing Spanish singers in the papal chapel choir helped Morales, who moved to Rome in 1535 and joined up. During his time, Morales sang on three occasions for the emperor Charles V and received a commission to write music for Charles’s wedding to Isabella of Portugal in 1526. Morales remained employed by the Vatican until 1545, after which he returned to Spain following a period of unsuccessful job hunting in Italy. While regarded as one of the greatest composers in Europe, he was an unpopular employee and had difficulty keeping his jobs.
Morales was one of the first important contributors to a growing repertoire of musical settings of the liturgy for the dead. His antiphon for the the solemn office, Circumdederunt me, set for five voices, achieves a dark mood through slow-moving polyphony and low ranges. The sound fits the text perfectly.
The groanings of death have encircled me: the sorrows of hell have enclosed me.
His settings of funeral music were disseminated widely across Europe. The Missa pro Defunctis was likely sung in Mexico in 1559 at memorial ceremonies for Emperor Charles V and his son, Philip II of Spain.
Philip II of Spain (1527-1598), "Philip the Prudent,” reigned during the so-called “Golden Age.” At the peak of his influence and power, Philip’s empire included territories on every continent then known to Europeans, including his namesake the Philippine Islands. People described his dominion as “the empire on which the sun never sets.” Unfortunately, his reign also saw the economic decline of Spain and the disastrous decade from 1588-1598 which included the devastating defeat of the Spanish Armada. Philip loved music and was a passionate art patron. He had a wonderful collection of masterpieces at the Escorial, his palace outside of Madrid, and was well educated in History and Politics but poor at languages.
16th-century Spanish music patronage differs from English, French, and Italian music in that the Spanish royal house maintained two royal chapels: the House of Burgundy and the House of Castile. The first was made up of Charles’s and Philip’s Low Countries subjects (Flemish) and the second of Spaniards. Philip’s maintenance of two chapels of singers and players showed an incredible commitment to music, unmatched by his contemporary sovereigns. Philip was also the only monarch of his time who patronized Italian, Spanish, and Flemish composers equally. He was the only patron to whom Palestrina dedicated two books of masses. Philip also helped Spanish composer Guerrero on his first publication, and Victoria dedicated one of his lavish single publications of Magnificats to him in 1563. Philip was the leading international music patron of his age.
Tomás Luis de Victoria (c.1548-1611), the most famous Spanish composer at the time, was one of the most important composers of the Counter-Reformation, along with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594), and Orlando di Lasso. Victoria was not only a composer but also an accomplished organist and Catholic priest. Victoria was sent by Philip in 1565 to prepare for holy orders at the German College in Rome. During this time he likely studied under Palestrina, whom he eventually succeeded as director of music at the Roman Seminary.
The Magnificat, the Canticle of Mary, was the next most important part of the liturgy after the Mass in the 16th-century Catholic Church. It was sung at the close of each day’s service of Vespers: Settings of the Magnificat were in demand. Composers served this liturgical need by publishing a complete set of eight or sixteen settings of the Magnificat, covering eight “tones” or keys. Victoria’s Magnificat primi toni, one of his two polychoral settings, employs eight voices and alternates between fugal sections for one choir and full double choir passages for both choirs. The way Victoria balances imitation and full homophonic statements in his Magnificat is strikingly similar to Palestrina’s techniques in Nunc dimittis for double choir—we can hear why Victoria is called the “Spanish Palestrina.”
In 1578 Philip II honored Victoria’s request to return to his native Spain, where he met the pious dowager empress Maria, sister of Philip, and later became her chaplain. His last work was the Requiem Mass (1605) in memory of the empress Maria, his most famous work. All of the music in the Requiem Mass is scored for six voices, except the initial Taedet animam meam funeral motet (not sung in the program) he also wrote for the occasion. The second soprano part often carries the cantus firmus (a pre-existing melody used as the basis of a polyphonic composition), though it disappears into the other parts. Victoria concludes the Mass with the motet Versa est in luctum, which was probably sung as the clergy and dignitaries assembled around the catafalque, a decorated wooden framework supporting the empress’s coffin.
Philip II died at San Lorenzo in 1598. Alonso Lobo (1555-1617) wrote his best motet, Versa est in luctum, for Philip’s funeral at Toledo Cathedral. While the six-part motet is set to text associated with a Requiem Mass, he did not write a complete Requiem Mass setting. Though not as famous as Victoria, this stunning motet filled with beautiful, cascading lines captures the despair of the text and showcases why Victoria considered him to be an equal.
My harp is turned to grieving and my flute to the voice of those who weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are as nothing.
Flemish Music for the House of Habsburg
SATURDAY
FEB 4, 2017 at 7:30PM
St. Mark's Cathedral
1245 10th Ave E
Seattle, WA 98102
PROGRAM
Nicolas GOMBERT - Magnificat tertii et octavi toni
GOMBERT - Lugebat David Absalon
Heinrich ISAAC - Tota pulchra es
JOSQUIN - Gaude virgo mater
Thomas CRECQUILLON - Pater peccavi
arr. Ludwig SENFL - Quis dabit oculis nostris
ISAAC - Virgo prudentissima
TICKETS Save $2 per ticket by purchasing in advance
General Admission: $25
Seniors (65+): $20
Students: $15
SINGERS
Soprano: Danielle Sampson, Ruth Schauble, Margaret Obenza
Alto: Sarra Sharif Doyle, Joshua Haberman
Tenor: Orrin Doyle, Kurt Kruckeberg
Bass: Gabriel Lewis-O'Connor, Peter Lifland, Willimark Obenza
The House of Habsburg, one of the most influential royal houses of Europe, shaped the arts world like no other dynasty. In the sixteenth century, the power and wealth of a dynasty were expressed through its patronage of art and science. The most important ruler had to demonstrate that he was also an outstanding patron by commissioning and collecting works of art. Artists employed at the court enjoyed a good income, high social standing, and remarkable freedoms, a rarity during this period of religious turbulence. The program features music by the most famous Franco-Flemish composers employed by Maximilian I (1486-1519) and Charles V (1519-1556).
Music was clearly important to Charles V. He collected musicians during his travels, eventually finding Nicolas Gombert (c.1495-1560) in Flanders and naming him choirmaster for the royal chapel in 1529. He and the singers would travel with the emperor, further spreading the Franco-Flemish polyphonic tradition. He unofficially held the position of court composer, arranging many works commemorating key events during Charles V’s life. In 1540, Gombert ran into trouble with the law and was sentenced to hard labor but was pardoned early sometime around 1547, after Charles heard the Magnificat settings he composed while serving his sentence. These “swansongs” are considered to be Gombert’s greatest works and showcase his style—a preference for dense textures and dissonant harmony. His setting of the Magnificat on the program is the third of a cycle of eight and alternates between plainchant and polyphonic sections. Magnificat begins with three parts and unfolds to eight parts by the end, each section marked with Gombert’s signature splash of dissonance.
Gombert’s eight-voice motet Lugebat David Absalon was originally attributed to Josquin. Josquin (c.1450-1521), a contemporary of Gombert and Isaac, is considered to be the greatest composer of the age and was so famous and admired that many anonymous compositions were attributed to him by copyists, probably to increase their sales. This Lugebat David Absalon is an example. Gombert’s work is an eight-voice motet based on David’s Lament and is a contrafactum (where the composer substitutes one text for another without making substantial changes to the music). The motet is filled with beautiful imitative descending lines (classic lament painting) and the pleading repetition of “O fili mi” (O my son!), making it one of the most moving settings of David’s Lament in the Renaissance.
Heinrich Isaac’s (c.1450-1517) career spanned over 30 years and allowed him to travel far from his homeland of Flanders into Germany, Italy, and Austria. He took several positions as a professional singer before making his way to Vienna to take up the position of court composer for Emperor Maximilian I. Around 1502, Isaac traveled to Ferrara to the Este court, where he wrote the motet La mi la sol la sol la mi in merely two days and competed with Josquin for employment. A famous letter from the agent of the Este Family compared the two composers, “[Isaac] is of a better disposition among his companions, and he will compose new works more often. It is true that Josquin composes better, but he composes when he wants to and not when one wants him to." The program includes two motets by Isaac dedicated to the Virgin Mary, both based on chant (found in the lower voice parts in longer note values). Tota pulchra is scored for four lower voices and, through carefully balanced chordal and homophonic textures, delivers an intimate mood in this setting from the Song of Songs. Isaac’s Virgo prudentissima, one of the grandest motets of the Renaissance, is a musical dedication to the Virgin Mary on one hand but also a tribute to his employer Maximilian I on the other, written for his coronation. The text is by humanist Vadian, and it expresses hope that the Virgin will look mercifully on Maximillian. The motet alternates between chant sung as a duet and with declamatory sections of polyphony, one of Isaac’s most complex works.
Josquin’s Gaude virgo mater Christi is from a time when devotion to the Virgin Mary flourished in the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance, fostering new celebrations, new poetry, and music dedicated to the worship of the Virgin. The text has no liturgical use and was likely written for private devotion. The four-part motet tells the story of Mary’s involvement with the Christ Child from her Annunciation, through his death and resurrection.
Not much is known about Thomas Crecquillon (1505-1557). He was a priest and member of the chapel of Charles V and died probably as a victim of the plague. Though details of his life are spare, his output was somewhat prolific. He wrote twelve masses, over 100 motets, and 200 chansons. Like Josquin, Crecquillon stylistically preferred writing imitative polyphony but rarely varied the texture for dramatic effect, preferring smoothness and consistency, as demonstrated in Pater peccavi, a motet about the story of the Prodigal Son.
Ludwig Senfl (1486-1542) was the most famous student of Isaac and served as his copyist. When Isaac died in 1517, Maximilian I appointed Senfl to fill Isaac’s position as court composer. However, when Maximilian died in 1519, Senfl lost his job, and his situation became worse: Charles V dismissed most of Maximilian’s musicians and refused to pay Senfl the annual stipend owed to him in the event of Maximilian's death. He spent his next few years seeking employment, eventually sympathizing with Protestants (although never officially becoming one) and acquiring a post in Munich which had high musical standards and was tolerant of Protestant sympathizers.
Quis dabit oculis nostris was originally attributed to Senfl, but it was actually composed by Costanzo Festa, who wrote it originally for the death of Anne de Bretagne, the Queen of France whom Maximilian once sought for his wife. Senfl adapted Festa’s motet for Maximillian’s funeral, changing only a few words (“Anna” was replaced by “Maximilianus”) with the necessary rhythmic adjustments, probably because Senfl did not have enough time to compose a new motet.
The sixteenth century was a golden age for Renaissance vocal music, and this program showcases the essence of the Flemish style: smooth and elegant lines, a predominantly polyphonic texture, and very moderate vocal ranges. From the somber setting of David’s lament in Gombert’s Lugebat David Absalon, to Isaac’s fireworks-of-a-motet Virgo Prudentissima, the program displays the remarkable range of expression in Flemish polyphony.
VOX16 sings Venetian Polyphony: Music from St. Mark's Basilica
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10th at 7:30pm
Trinity Parish Church
609 8th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104
St. Mark’s Basilica employed some of the most innovative Renaissance composers who led the stylistic charge into the Baroque period. This program features polychoral music by Monteverdi, Croce, Gabrieli and Willaert.
PROGRAM
CROCE - Laudans exultet gaudio
MONTEVERDI - Missa in illo tempore
GABRIELI - Angelus ad pastores
MONTEVERDI - Adoramus te, Christe
MONTEVERDI - Memento
GABRIELI - O Jesu, mi dulcissime
WILLAERT - Ave Maria
GABRIELI - Magnificat for triple choir
TICKETS Save $3 by purchasing your tickets in advance here
General Admission: $20
Seniors (65+): $15
Students: $10
Renaissance vocal music hit its stride in the 16th and 17th century as composers mastered the art of expression. The previous writing style of the 15th and 16th centuries of long endless phrases evolved into an expressive style that focused on communicating the text. In Italy, the development of this new expressive style can be traced to one church, St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. St. Mark’s—one of the most famous churches in the world—was a home to some of the most innovative Renaissance composers who were largely responsible for the musical shift into the Baroque period.
St. Mark’s—a fine example of Byzantine architecture—was built in 828 and has withstood many structural and decorative changes through the centuries. During the 14th century, it was common for people returning from the Orient to bring columns, capitals, statues or friezes to add to the basilica— effectively covering it in plunder. The exterior brickwork became covered with various marbles and carvings—some much older than the building itself—and the interior filled with gilded Byzantine mosaics. From the 11th century on, the building has been known as the Church of Gold.
Claudio Monteverdi—the most well known composer at St. Mark’s—grew up in Cremona, Northern Italy, singing in the cathedral choir. Monteverdi moved to Venice in 1613 to work at St. Mark’s and allegedly restored the falling musical standard. Monteverdi's predecessor's poor financial management skills was to blame for the subpar musical reputation at St. Mark’s. During Monteverdi's time at St. Mark's, he laid the stylistic foundation for the early Baroque style. The development of Basso Continuo was key in the transition to the baroque period. The Basso continuo is the doubling of the bass vocal part by an instrument and functioned to strengthen the harmonic structure over which a group of instrumentalists or "continuo" would improvise. St. Mark’s is very large and musicians were often split up into groups and placed at different parts of the church to perform call and response type music. Having instruments double singers improved clarity in such a large space. The Basso Continuo was logistically necessary. The practice of "doubling" was not new. 16th century sources comment on the deteriorating quality of church choirs who used the organ to double the substandard choirs.
Hence, it was legitimate to have the organ double the choir in Monteverdi's In illo tempore, though we will perform it unaccompanied. Monteverdi composed the mass to present to Pope Paul V in 1610 in hopes to receive a scholarship for his son and for some self notoriety. Because church music at the Sistine Chapel was always sung unaccompanied, the edition for the Sistine Chapel did not include an organ part. For no obvious reason, Monteverdi's In illo tempore is modeled on Franco-Flemish composer Nicholas Gombert's motet by the same name. It's possible Monteverdi wanted to look beyond the preceding generation of Italian composers to Flemish sources. Monteverdi extracts 10 themes from Gombert's motet to construct a 6 voice mass 30 minutes in length. Monteverdi's Adoramus te, Christe was published in Giulio Bianchi's—a colleague of his— book of motets in 1620. Memento was sung at Vespers on important feast days during the year. For these occasions, the high altar retable was opened and the choir sang double-choir psalms. Monteverdi composed Memento in a similar double-choir psalm chant style.
St. Mark’s acoustic presented another challenge—the distance between opposing choir lofts causes a sound delay. Composers used this acoustic peculiarity to their advantage. Instead of trying to coordinate widely separated choirs to sing the same music simultaneously in such an expansive space, composers such as Adrian Willaert—choirmaster of St. Mark’s in the 1540s—solved the problem by writing polychoral (multi choir) music. Opposing choirs would sing successive, often contrasting phrases of the music. The stereo effect grew in popularity and soon other composers were writing music for the same effect—not only in St. Mark’s— but in other large cathedrals in Italy. St. Mark's architecture caused the development of the Venetian Polychoral Style which spread throughout Europe.
St. Mark's Basilica (choir lofts)
The peak of the development of the Venetian Polychoral style was in the late 1500s while Giovanni Gabrieli was organist at St. Mark’s. Giovanni Gabrieli—nephew of Andrea Gabrieli—used large choirs of brass and began to specify dynamics for the echo effects. The spectacular sonorous music in St. Mark’s during Gabrieli’s years was soon exported across Europe by visiting composers and musicians.
Giovanni Croce’s affiliation with St. Mark’s was minimal at best—records show he might have been a member of the boys choir at St. Mark’s around 1585. Croce is most famous for his madrigals, but he did write a few polychoral pieces in the style of Giovanni Gabrieli such as Laudans exultet gaudio. Polychoral music is fun to sing, it feels like you are in competition with the other choir—seeing who can be the loudest.
Adrian Willaert—Flemish composer of the Renaissance and founder of the Venetian School—was one of the most representative members of the northern generation of composers who moved to Italy bringing the polyphonic Franco-Flemish style with him. In contrast to the bombastic polychoral music, Willaert’s setting of Ave Maria is simple. Scored for only 4 voices the motet captures a beautiful somber mood.
