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Francais (French)
I was at a dinner party on a very cold, very wintry night right after Christmas, and one of the guests (a non-musician) said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if people researched old instruments from hundreds of years ago and played the pieces that were written then on those instruments?” I didn’t know what to say, really. There have been whole university departments dedicated to historical instruments for many decades now.
But I was pleased to see, a month later, on an equally cold and equally wintry night, music from a time very long past, played on just such instruments, making a strong impression on a modern public.
What you missed
On February 5, the forward-thinking organization La Nef, presented a program dedicated to songs and instrumental music from 16th and 17th-century Spain. The stars of the show were soprano Catherine St-Arnaud, and instrumentalists Sylvain Bergeron and Antoine Mallette-Chénier. Equally starry were a baroque guitar, lute, and a beautiful period harp (along with an assortment of small percussion instruments adding colour).
All were perfectly at home in the charming (albeit frigid) venue, Centre St. Jax, formerly the Anglican church of St. James the Apostle. A smoke machine and creative lighting (by no means intrusive) set a fine atmosphere. The public was transported out of double-digit negative temperatures to Iberian warmth thanks to works by, among others José Marín (1619-1699), Alonso Mudarra (1510-1580), or Gaspar Sanz (1640-1710). “Olé!” indeed.
St-Arnaud is a versatile singer and seemed just as much at home in the 16th century as she is in the 21st. She sang the whole performance sitting down, which allowed her to navigate the sometimes complex songs and play some small percussion instruments when needed. Her most engaging performance vocally was perhaps the encore, a piece by Lully (admittedly not 16th century Spanish).
Bergeron adeptly moved from baroque guitar to lute, and Mallette-Chénier showed us why the harp had such a prominent place in the music of the time. As the program subtitle (Spanish arias and dances) hinted, the harp was clearly a more boisterous instrument than it is today. This was indeed one of the highlights of the evening. Giving the harp room to explore its expressive possibilities opened up new realizations about what it can do.
Gripes
Any program that deals with historically informed performance always risks being so dedicated to history and authenticity that it becomes a performative museum piece. On the other hand, simply letting the music exist allows it to stand on its own merits, but also deprives the listener of the context that can make the experience deeper and richer.
This particular program had a potentially rich context that many listeners might have enjoyed. The 16th and 17th centuries directly followed the reconquista, the epic struggle between the Emirate of Granada (and its predecessors) and the Crown of Castile, which was an important theme in centuries to come. The merging of two cultural worlds was clear in the music.
This was also the time Cervantes wrote Don Quixote–some would argue the birth of modern fiction. Further, in several songs, there was a clear influence of Mozarabic music (one of the oldest Latin music traditions). We heard the modes and tonal vocabulary that eventually made their way into flamenco and modern Spanish folk music, juxtaposed with the structure and compositional devices being explored in the Renaissance.
If this would have been too much information, it would have at least been valuable to have more detailed translations of the songs, or some information on where to find them. The performers did tell us the lyrics concerned the many facets of love (probably true of about 90% of all songs ever written), and for several numbers we were given a little bit more information. Being able to either follow more closely, or read up beforehand or afterwards, would have deepened the experience.
I came away with a lot of questions. Where were these songs performed? Mainly aristocratic courts? Were they well-known throughout society? Did people actually dance to the dances? Or were they more like Bach’s (and other Renaissance and Baroque) stylized dance suites?
Nevertheless, the performers were more than successful bringing the audience with them across the Atlantic to eons past. La Nef should be praised for its innovative approach, expanding and fudging the lines around the definition of a recital, performance, or classical music. All three artists took material that could have been distant and alienating, and made it approachable. Ultimately, they showed us nothing much has changed. Three hundred years have not been able to prevent us from connecting with the invigorating rhythms and moving melodies of that time, much in the same way as we do with the music of today.
La Nef’s next presentation takes place on April 2, at the Maison de la culture Maisonneuve with an intriguing program dedicated to Montreal in the 1920s.
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
Francais (French)
