Graindelavoix
Tue, Feb 26 2013, 9:33PM
le grain, c'est le corps dans la voix qui chante, dans la main qui écrit, dans le membre qui exécute...
Roland Barthes
koen%20broosklein.jpg)
Is anyone here familiar with this remarkable early music ensemble? As far as I'm concerned, they are amongst the most interesting groups in this repertoire.
I'm especially a fan of their recording of Ockeghem's Missa Caput, where they conciously step away from the angelic, ethereal approach that's usually associated with this kind of reperoire. In stead of the sweet, homogeneous sound of the likes of the Hilliard or Huelgas ensemble (which are also very dear to me!), their sound is very heterogeneous, focussing on what Roland Barthes would have called the 'genovoice':
From their website:
"graindelavoix (grain of the voice) is an art-collective formed by björn schmelzer. since 1999 he is looking for musicians who want to experiment between performance and creation. the necessity of autoproductive and physical art keeps them together.
graindelavoix is fascinated by voices that are beyond communication, that have no message anymore but rather are the pure expression of their underground: the gritty, intense and instinctive...
graindelavoix uses early music repertoires to find the undercurrent that illuminates our own times: a timeless spirit that stretches out to embrace an interval, a space.
what preoccupies graindelavoix in early music is the bond between notation and what eludes it: the higher consciousness and savoir-faire that the performer brings to a piece (ornamentation, improvisation, gestures...). to graindelavoix, singers are 'spiritual automata'...
material they work with includes franco-flemish polyphony, the art of lamenting, machicotage & other lost ornamentation styles, mediterranean performance traditions, late scholastic dynamics and kinematics, the affective body, gestics, image culture & psycho-acoustica..."
Tue, Feb 26 2013, 11:26PM
#2
RE: Graindelavoix
Yippee Brumas! I ordered their Missa Caput on Glossa after Parlas' recommendation, and I can only say I found it absolutely astonishing.
I can't quite remember exactly what I said, but the spacious echo and great big swellings and drones struck me as remarkable. It'll be on the Ockeghem thread....
Mark
Wed, Feb 27 2013, 9:27AM
#3
RE: Graindelavoix
Yes indeed Mark! Now that you remind me, that's how I got to hear of it too! Thanks for the reminder, and belated thanks, Parla for the recommendation.
Mark, I will try to find the Ockeghem thread from the distant past! Don't you think they might do a rather good job with the Machaut Mass?
Chris
PS: Found the Ockeghem pages, you'll find it on the sixth page of the Recordings section. Interesting stuff!
Wed, Feb 27 2013, 10:21AM
#4
RE: Graindelavoix
Many thanks, Mark and Chris, for remembering my suggestion(s).
By the way, the label Agogique has very recently released a very interesting CD with Ochegem's Missa Prolationum with the equally great and very involved in this music Ensemble Music Nova under Lucien Kandel. It's a brilliant recording of some very exciting music. Not that usual stuff of the music of this period. The same group has recorded the magnificent Missa Cuisvis Toni, on Aeon. A double CD not to be missed.
For a more conservative and straightforward approach of Missa Caput, you may pursue the Clerk's Group under E. Wicklam, on ASV-Gaudeamus.
Parla
Wed, Feb 27 2013, 5:02PM
#5
RE: Graindelavoix
My goodness Brumas, that's astonishing!
After our Sibila discussion I went to listen to some of it. I started thinking about a thread on the question of interpretation of early music where reconstruction plays a major part, and my mind turned, believe it or not, to the Graindelavoix recordings of Ockeghem!
I think their recording of the Caput mass is fascinating, and has a real timeless feel to it. Too much of what I hear sounds thoroughly 20th century. One of the things I liked about Savall's reconstructions is that they sound 'real' - whatever that may mean in this context. The very heterogeneous sound of Graindelavoix, combined with singing at a lower pitch than usual feels somehow right to me, ancient yet vibrant, though there is one voice amongst the group that to my ears goes rather too far in raucousness.
Also, I don't think the interspersing of the Parisian Machicotage for the Mandatum Ritual (Washing of Feet) works well though. I always listen to the Mass separately. Anyway it's easy to programme as one likes.
A rather wish they would look at Machaut: I've not yet heard a recording of the Messe de Notre Dame which sounds convincing.
Well it's getting late here, so that will have to suffice for this evening. I wonder if any others know this music?
Goodnight,
Chris
Yes, a graindelavoix-recording of the Machaut mass has the potential to be awesome!
Have you heard the EnsmbleOrganum recording on Harmonia Mundi? Sounds convincing to these ears!
Re: interpretation/reconstruction: That is indeed where groups like graindelavoix and Hesperion XXI excel. As Richard Taruskin has written so eloquently in Text and Act, the attempt to be 'authentic' by strictly following the written scores is indeed a thoroughly 20th-century form of authenticity. The modern concept of a muscial 'work' did not come into being before the nineteenth century. Thus, if one wants to be true to the spririt of this very early material, one has to interpret, reconstruct and even construct what happens between the written sources and the actual performance.
Wed, Feb 27 2013, 8:11PM
#6
RE: Graindelavoix
Brumas,
There's a lot I want to explore in this music. I'd hoped to contribute a little more about this subject tonight, but time is running out and I'll be away for a few days, so this and Rinaldo will have to wait till early next week.
All the best,
Chris
Tue, Mar 5 2013, 5:28PM
#7
RE: Graindelavoix
Time to get back to Ockeghem.
Before that though, I'm intrigued about the EnsembleOrganum recording of the Machaut Mass. The only recording I know is the Naxos one with the Oxford Camerata, a performance I find too smoothe and overdiatonicised (I'm not sure there is such a word but you see what I mean). The response of different groups to the question of which accidentals should be sung, if any, can make for quite dramatic differences in what is actually sung. I don't begin to understand the background to this but can hear the results well enough. I suppose I shall have to fork out for EnsembleOrganum!
Regarding Parla's recommendation of Ockeghem's Missa Prolationum and the 'magnificent' Missa Cuisvis Toni (see above for details), something needs to be added. Both works are astonishing tours de force, Mark has commented on the former elsewhere (each voice sings in a different time signature). The latter may well be magnificent but is hardly a single work in the strict sense. The title means "Mass in any Mode'. No key signature is given and it can start on any of four different keys, resulting in music in four different modes (since the sharps or flats that would be expected of that key are omitted), depending on the starting key. I understand that the performances in question (which I've not heard) are of all four alternatives. If you are interested, both works are described very thoroughly in Richard Taruskin's Oxford History of Western Music.
All very clever but as Richard Taruskin observes "not everyone is equally impressed with an elaborate technical apparatus that is seemingly constructed and exercised for its own sake". Sounds more like Schoenberg at his most didactic!
I'm curious but uncertain. Has anyone else heard these works, especially the latter?
Chris
Wed, Mar 6 2013, 7:20AM
#8
RE: Graindelavoix
Chris, the Missa in cuiusvis toni is a sort of "tour de force", since it involves a considerable strength of virtuosity by the performers. It is indeed a Mass "in any tone", which means it can be performed in all the Church modes.
The double CD of Aeon provides the four versions of the Mass in the modes of D, F, E and G, where one can enjoy the subtle and refined beauty of each tone. This a "World Premier" on CD and it has been praised accordingly almost everywhere in the Continent.
Parla
Wed, Mar 6 2013, 6:20PM
#9
RE: Ockeghem Missa Cuisvis Toni
I think, increasingly, curiosity is getting the upper hand over uncertainty about this recording!
But I'm getting very confused now about the modes. I found the CD set on Amazon and it is possible to listen to short clips from each section there. The four versions of the Mass are stated as being in the modes of D, F, E and G, as you said Parla. I had expected to hear them in different keys, i.e. at different pitches, but this is not the case. In each version the tonic (or whatever the equivalent is called in modal music) is the same, somewhere between E and E flat. The differences between the versions are only, as far as I can hear, in the accidentals applied, which of course affect both the melody and the harmony. It gets even more intriguing!
Is there anyone around who can explain this better?
I think I'll buy it soon anyway. And the Machaut Mass with EnsembleOrganum.
Thanks to you both, Parla and Brumas!
Chris
Thu, Mar 7 2013, 5:12AM
#10
RE: Graindelavoix
As I mentioned, Chris, the four modes are the Church ones, not the western modes we know. They refer to the four authentic ones, not the plagal ones, of the eight traditional modes of the Gregorian Chant. These modes are analogous but not identical to the tonic system in the Western Classical tradition.
The D is known also as the Dorian, the E as Phrygian, the F as Ionian and the G as Mixolydian.
So, forget the usual approach of the Western traditional tonalities. This is Old Music at its highest, of course.
Parla
Thu, Mar 7 2013, 5:25AM
#11
RE: Graindelavoix
Or, as they say on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_mode
The final is the pitch in which the chant usually ends; it may be approximately regarded as analogous (but not identical) to the tonic in the Western classical tradition.
Dontcha love postmodern pasteups ...
Thu, Mar 7 2013, 9:26AM
#12
RE: Graindelavoix
Thanks DST, Parla, Wikipedia and indeed Richard Taruskin, who I quoted above!
But none of this answers my question, except thank you DST I know now to use final rather than tonic!
I understand the modal nature of the music and that the intervals between the notes of the 'scale' are different in each mode. OK so far.
But it seems (from the recording at least) that there is no difference between the key (as judged from the finals or the tessituras) of each of the versions. I would expert a Mass in F to sound higher than a mass in D, and so on, but it seems not to be so. That's to say the D, or F. or E or G has nothing to do with the final or tonic.
And yet, in Taruskin, musical examples are given, and the music is written out as I would have expected. In the Mass in D, the first note (and the final) is indeed D, in the Mass in in E, the first note is E etc. So what's going on?
Help!
Chris
You can listen to samples from each at:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ockeghem-Cuiusvis-Ensemble-Musica-Nova/dp/B000WC...
Thu, Mar 7 2013, 10:03AM
#13
RE: Graindelavoix
I've never heard of this 'Mass in any mode' but it sure sounds intriguing! I'll look into it, and see if i can figure out what's going on...
In any case, I would say that to call the final analogous to the tonic would be a bit confusing. The finalis is indeed the note on which the work ends (hence the name). However, it does not have the kind of central position in a piece that the tonic has in tonal music.
That role is more or less played by the reciting tone (also called tenor or dominant). This note functions as the kind of gravitational centre of the work, as we would expect the tonic in a tonal piece.
PS: I'm curious how you feel about the Ensemble Organum recording of the Machaut mass. I must admit this is the only recording I know of the piece, so I can't compare it with any other recording, but I find it a remarkable record nontheless.
Thu, Mar 7 2013, 11:29AM
#14
RE: Graindelavoix
On the Missa Cuisvis:
Here are two versions of the kyrie, one in re and one in mi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nohgtTIWudg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKAdtaXyxi0
Thu, Mar 7 2013, 11:53AM
#15
RE: Graindelavoix
Thanks Brumas. You notice though that they both are in the same key, albeit in a different mode. Perhaps that's it, the translation mass in any key, should be mass in any mode. But even so, why say that one is in Re (D) and the other in Mi (E)? Or is it a mistake to think that these 'keys' have anything at all to do with actual pitch?
PS: I'll report on the Machaut later, but it will probably be a little while. I can't order more CDs just yet!!
My goodness Brumas, that's astonishing!
After our Sibila discussion I went to listen to some of it. I started thinking about a thread on the question of interpretation of early music where reconstruction plays a major part, and my mind turned, believe it or not, to the Graindelavoix recordings of Ockeghem!
I think their recording of the Caput mass is fascinating, and has a real timeless feel to it. Too much of what I hear sounds thoroughly 20th century. One of the things I liked about Savall's reconstructions is that they sound 'real' - whatever that may mean in this context. The very heterogeneous sound of Graindelavoix, combined with singing at a lower pitch than usual feels somehow right to me, ancient yet vibrant, though there is one voice amongst the group that to my ears goes rather too far in raucousness.
Also, I don't think the interspersing of the Parisian Machicotage for the Mandatum Ritual (Washing of Feet) works well though. I always listen to the Mass separately. Anyway it's easy to programme as one likes.
A rather wish they would look at Machaut: I've not yet heard a recording of the Messe de Notre Dame which sounds convincing.
Well it's getting late here, so that will have to suffice for this evening. I wonder if any others know this music?
Goodnight,
Chris
Chris A.Gnostic