Singing about the dark times

Pater Peccavi: Music of Lamentation from Renaissance Portugal; music by Brito, Cardoso, Lobo, Magalhães, Morago

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times. 

- Bertold Brecht, Motto to the 'Svendborg Poems'

The sensuous, fiercely sad music of 16th and 17th century Portugal can be so intensely emotional that the centuries between slip away, and one responds as if to a death in the family or some local tragedy. As Rory McCleery documents in his fine liner essay to his superb new disc with The Marian Consort, at least some of these musical laments are more than personal declarations of grief or devotional works, but also political statements, and even underground expressions of activism against the rule of the Spanish Habsburgs in Portugal. So underlying the bitterness of the lamentations is a strongly burning hope, a hope, indeed for eventual salvation, but also for the restoration of a Portuguese monarch, which indeed happened with the accession of John (João) IV in December 1640.

Duarte Lobo's Missa Veni Domine is almost certainly a political as well as a devotional and artistic statement. Its text asks God to return without delay in order to "ease the wrong done to your people, and call back to their land those who have been dispersed. Stir up your power, O Lord, and come that you might save us."



Humans will always look to art for hope, from Lisbon in 1640 to Brecht in exile in 1939, to the many great artists working in the shadow of the worldwide fascist redux of today. This release is a profound example of how political action can be mobilized and supported by art.

This album will be released on November 2, 2018.

Stravinsky with a distinctive British sound

This is the second new Stravinsky choral disc I've come across this summer; it's due for release on August 26, 2016. When the music is as beautifully played and sung as it is here, by the Choir of St. Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Duncan Ferguson, and in Philippe Herreweghe's disc with the Collegium Vocale Gent and the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, you can only sit in wonder at the genius of the great composer, and listen gratefully to such artful construction and spiritual depth.

The works on this Delphian disc are in most cases earlier and less austere. The writing is easier on the ear, though always Stravinskyan. Since the high voices are sung by trebles there is an English (whoops, better say British) sound to the music which I often found quite appealing. Incidentally, St. Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh was the first cathedral in Britain to use girls as well as boys in its choir. They sound fabulous:

There's only one short piece that the two new discs have in common: the first of the Gesualdo motets that Stravinsky edited, Da Pacem Domine. Again, there's a distinctive sound from the Scottish choir, though I think the Belgian singers come out just ahead in this instance. Nevertheless, this is a fine recording, and one I'm sure I will listen to often in the future.