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MP3 Vox Reflexa - Vox Reflexa
13 MP3 Songs in this album (41:23) !
Related styles: Classical: Renaissance, Classical: Early Music, A Cappella
People who are interested in Chanticleer Hilliard Ensemble Polyphony should consider this download.
Details:
The sacred and secular music of the Renaissance (~1430 - 1600 C.E.) encompasses a fantastic period of musical innovation and creativity. The Humanists from the Renaissance, inspired by Petrarch (1304-1374), believed in studying the Classic Era (Ancient Greece and Rome) in an effort to renew what had been lost during the “darkness” of the medieval period. We can experience the musical consequence of these efforts through this fantastic body of poetry and music. The variety of style exists due to the absolute dedication composers had for dramatic text setting and the nature of the languages themselves. More striking are the pieces which use different compositional techniques as a unifying element. Earlier pieces such as the Magnificat Tercii Toni and La plus Jolie et la plus belle are constructed using techniques closely related to the medieval period. Juxtapose those works with A lieta vita and Caro dolce mio bene, whose harmonic and melodic figures act as precursors for the Classic/Romantic period.
One of the goals of the Vox Reflexa Consort is to push the boundaries of performance practice and scholarship of a given repertory. Although much work has been done on this period, the total output of Renaissance composers is staggering. Orlande de Lassus, the famous composer featured on the CD, has over two thousand compositions alone. Another aspect that the group focuses on is historically accurate pronunciation of the text. While there are no recordings from this period, through the diligent work of scholars who specialize in this field, performers are more and more able to make well informed decisions regarding pronunciation. The ultimate goal is to give each and every piece of music its own unique and special character. In doing so, the goal was always to give the text the utmost of clarity. In general, when a question arose about whether or not to go with the “older” or “newer” version of a language (using Old French from before 1450 or after 1450 when a piece is only known to be from the 15th century in general, for example), the more archaic version seemed to provide the bright, crisp tone so typical of this music.
The most confounding choices to be made in pre-Baroque music tend to center around what is known as musica ficta – raising or lowering melodic notes by a semi-tone for harmonic purposes when not otherwise indicated by the composer, ficta for short. Before the tendancy toward a standardization of notational methods (generally regarded to be during the early 17th century, but this is a matter of great contestation among musicologists), many musical practices were simply taught by rote, and passed from one person to the next without ever being written in the score. Fortunately, many headstrong music theorists of the day took issue with almost
everything at one point or another, so the extant treatises give us clues as to what was and was not acceptable in a given region. Ficta is the pièce de résistance when referring to the virtually unwritten rules of the period. As opposed to the harmonic and melodic free-for-all in which we, as a post-tonal society, live, composers and performers in the Renaissance were forbidden to sing certain intervals at certain times. Altering a pitch here or there by raising or lowering it through a “false” sharp or flat was the primary way in which these intervals were avoided. Due to notational limitations of the day, however, the composer frequently left it to the performer to deduce these for himself. We have endeavored to refrain from offending any long-departed spirits whenever possible in this recording. However, some composers were clever enough to leave an unsolvable problem, in which no alteration removes all conflicts. These spikey clashes are what bring the progressive color to the aptly-named Renaissance.
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