This is an absolutely brilliant review, which all the early music singers of my acquaintance must read. Its no secret that I have for a long, long time been irritated beyond measure by The Tallis Scholars and how their bland white-note style has taken over everything considered to be early music; - a vast field - and all sung in exactly the same way, which just.....drains the life and vigour out of it. Long, slow, open, white notes supposed (I assume) to make one feel that the musical is divinely inspired and celestial. The thing is, its a made up style, made up by the Director, Peter Phillips. There is little evidence to suggest that thats how things actually worked (and some to strongly suggest that they did not work this way). But it has become, de facto, the early music sound, and that is maddening. Not least because, when applied to earlier music than the standard late 16thc stuff like Byrd etc - stuff like Josquin or even earlier, which they do occasionally - the result is an abomination. Like a bloodless vampires victim, very beautiful, still as death, all the life and energy leeched out of it. Josquin is one of the most energetic late Renaissance composers. Full of movement, and full of the crazy, it is literally death to his music to sing it in this white-note way. God help us all, its evenworse when its done (as it often is) to earlier music such as Dufay. This basically made up style kills Renaissance and Medieval music, impales them on a spike of its own limpid, too-slow, passionless uncomplicated beauty. I think that the style was probably made up to sound disembodied and therefore godly. The effect, however, is deeply conservative and deadening. I really wish that just about ALL Australian ensembles that cover this repertoire didnt blindly follow this style, but they do. Maddening, and wrong and a grave injustice to the music. That having been said, this review singles out Profeti della Quinta as being amonst the best to do this repertoire, and they are indeed magnificent and amazing and a revelation, and if you havent heard them, do so immediately. Id love to tag a heap of people in this, but I dont want to be rude to anyone, so Ill just put it in the comments and ask you to read the original review.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 11:53:42 +0000
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