Musical anniversaries in 2021

There is quite a raft of musical anniversaries to celebrate this year. From a thorough list (Thanks again, Osbert) I have culled the following set:

Memorials

• 25 years:
  • Vagn Holmboe
  • Mieczyslaw Weinberg
  • Toru Takemitsu
• 50 years:
  • Marcel Dupré
  • Igor Stravinsky
• 100 years:
  • Camille Saint-Saëns
  • Engelbert Humperdinck
• 150 years:
  • Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
  • Sigismond Thalberg
• 400 years:
  • Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
  • Michael Praetorius
• 500 years:
  • Robert Fayrfax
  • Josquin Desprez

Birthdays

• 100 years: Malcolm Arnold
• 150 years: Alexander von Zemlinsky
• 450 years: Michael Praetorius
• 500 years: Philippe de Monte
• 800 years: Alfonso X El Sabio

It’s the year of Michael Praetorius, in a sense, who gets both a birthday and a memorial commemoration, but the big names this year, at least for me and my house, will be Stravinsky and Josquin. I’ve planned a listening project for each: for Stravinsky, I’ll be focusing on the three big ballets (The Rite, Petrouchka, and The Firebird) and his choral music, with a smattering of other things thrown in; for Josquin I hope to listen through all of his 60-odd motets, 60-odd chansons, and 18 Mass settings. It should be great!

I’m also looking forward to spending time with Takemitsu, whose beguilingly dissonant music always lures me back, and Thalberg, whose virtuoso piano works have been given an airing in a few recent records by top-shelf piano virtuosos (this and this). I did a large Weinberg listening project just a few years ago, but I intend to revisit some of the highlights.

Strange to think that Josquin and Fayrfax died in the same year. I’d have put them in adjacent centuries if asked at the bus stop.

I’m not really sure what I should listen to from Dupré or Sweelinck; I don’t have much in my collection. Suggestions welcome.

Musical anniversaries in 2018

Every year I like to plan a few listening projects around composers who will be marking significant birthdays and memorials in the year ahead. From a very thorough list (Thanks, Osbert) I have culled the following set of those that pique my interest:

Memorials

50 years

• Healey Willan

100 years

• Hubert Parry
• Claude Debussy
• Lili Boulanger

150 years

• Gioachino Rossini

450 years

• Jacques Arcadelt
• Robert Carver

500 years

• Loyset Compère
• Pierre de la Rue

600 years

• Matteo da Perugia

***

Birthdays

100 years

• Leonard Bernstein
• George Rochberg

350 years

• François Couperin

Obviously the big ones in the wide world will be for Debussy and Rossini, and with good reason, but personally I’m most excited about taking some time with the music of three of the lesser-known names: Healey Willan, a composer who lived and worked for most of his life in the same city where I live and work, and whose music I much admire; Robert Carver, a Scottish composer whose few surviving works are good examples of the spectacular polyphony that was sung in those lands before the Reformation; and especially my beloved Matteo da Perugia, whose alluring music is one of life’s choicest pleasures. I’m also interested in getting to know the music of George Rochberg, an important figure in the gradual overthrow of serialism as the de rigueur style of twentieth century music.

For an envoi, let’s hear Healey Willan’s lovely motet “Rise up my love, my fair one”, sung by Flos Campi:

 

Livre du Saint Sacrement

Today is one of the notable musical dates of 2017: the 25th anniversary of the death of Messiaen. Some might recall that I’ve ambitions to listen to all of his music this year, and today I was enjoying Livre du Saint Sacrement, one of his major compositions for organ. Here is the final section, “Offrande et Alléluia final”, played by Monica Czausz.

I adore Messiaen’s organ music; for me is the greatest composer for the instrument after Bach. Imagine, for a moment, that the throne room of Heaven were opened, and we could hear the music of the Heavenly Court. It would be terrible and majestic, like an angelic host, solemn, and so beautiful that it would overwhelm our senses, just as the sight of that Court would dazzle our eyes. It would, in other words, sound like the music of Messiaen.

Musical anniversaries in 2017

With the turning of the year, I like to plan a few focused listening projects that I’ll undertake during the coming year, and often I structure these projects around significant anniversaries.

After looking through a comprehensive list (Thanks, Osbert.) of such anniversaries, I’ve settled on the following as worthy of personal observance:

Birthdays

450 years

• Claudio Monteverdi
• Thomas Campion

Memorials

25 years

• John Cage
• Olivier Messiaen

50 years

• Zoltán Kodály

250 years

• Georg Philipp Telemann

500 years

• Heinrich Isaac

The heavyweights for me are Messiaen’s 25th and Monteverdi’s 450th; I’ll be spending a lot of time with each of those wonderful composers. For Messiaen, I’ll be listening to the piano music, the organ music, the Quatuor, his symphony, and the large-scale orchestral works. For Monteverdi it will be his madrigals (all nine books), at least three of his operas, and his sacred music, especially the Vespers of 1610.

My collection of music by the others is more modest in scale, but I’ll make an effort to get to know it better. I have the feeling that Cage, in particular, wrote a lot of music that I don’t know at all; I also have the feeling it may not be worth my time. I have similar thoughts about Telemann. Kodály, I think, will reward attention.

Apart from these, I’m also planning to focus this year on the music of Bruckner and Elgar. Why Elgar? It’s odd, but for several months I’ve been feeling that I’d really like to immerse myself in his music. I can’t explain it. Perhaps an hour or two in his company will cure me.

Remembering Victoria

Today marks the 400th anniversary of the death of Tomás Luis de Victoria. Unquestionably one of the great figures in late Renaissance music, he also happens to be one of my favourites. A Spanish priest during the Counter-Reformation, he wrote (so far as I know) exclusively sacred music, and is probably best remembered today for his Holy Week music, a Requiem Mass, and a handful of gorgeous motets, principally O quam gloriosum, O magnum mysterium, and a lovely Ave Maria.

His music, while being broadly in the style of contemporaries like Palestrina and Byrd, often has a special quality that is hard to describe, but which makes it somehow especially alluring. I have had the privilege to sing his music on a few occasions, and I can testify that it is just as beautiful from within as from without. Harry Christophers, director of the British choir The Sixteen (which has itself recorded some of the most attractive performances of Victoria’s music), summed him up in this way:

“Scholar, mystic, priest, singer, organist and composer – six persons all rolled into one and that is, quite simply, why Victoria is the most outstanding composer of the Renaissance. He devoted his life to the church, and his works reveal such heartfelt passion that there are times, in performance, when we are almost overwhelmed by their intensity.”

♦♦♦♦♦

Here are a few of the best Victoria recordings of which I am aware, with samples where available:

Victoria: Cantica Beatae Virginae
Jordi Savall; Hesperion XX; La Capella Reial de Catalunya

This collection of a dozen or so Marian motets is a gem. Instruments are used to fill out the aural background, giving the music a lush, rich texture. The singing is robust and warm, not at all the cool, bloodless kind of singing one sometimes associates with polyphony. Here is the Ave Maria:

♦♦♦♦♦

Victoria: Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae
La Colombina

A big (3+ hours) collection of Victoria’s music for Holy Week, superbly sung and evocatively recorded. Passion narratives, Tenebrae music, motets, antiphons, and hymns are all included, intermixed with some Gregorian chant. It’s a beautiful experience to hear it. I have written about this recording before.

♦♦♦♦♦

Victoria: Et Iesum
Carlos Mena; Juan Carlos Rivera

This disc was on my best of the decade list last year, and I haven’t changed my mind about that. The concept is unusual: Victoria’s polyphonic sacred music is arranged for solo voice and instrumental accompaniment, a practice that was apparently current in Victoria’s own day. The simplicity of the settings brings out the beauty of the vocal line, and the singing, by counter-tenor Carlos Mena, is ravishing. As far as I am concerned, music does not get much better than this. Here is the Salve regina:

♦♦♦♦♦

In Paradisum: Music of Victoria and Palestrina
The Hilliard Ensemble

This disc includes only four pieces by Victoria, but it warrants inclusion on this short list because of the absorbing and exalting singing. Victoria’s music is heard alongside that of Palestrina, and both are interwoven into the Gregorian Requiem. It’s a special recording. Here they sing Peccantem me: