Madison 5: Fortune's Wheel, etc.
Yesterday I started to finally get some of the technical concepts we've been discussing. I found myself producing a thin thread of shawm sound in the afternoon loud band, and I said, "It doesn't sound like a shawm; it sounds like a bad oboe," which got me quickly corrected. I still need to work on quiet attacks; too often the sound doesn't start, or because I fear the sound not starting, I hammer the note.
In mass, we hit the Josquin pieces without instruments. Paul Flight has wonderful rehearsal technique and knows how to lead the uninitiated into Josquin's language. I've been singing Josquin for about 30 years, but for many, it was necessary. But sometimes he seems a little cavalier about balance issues, leaving it for us to work out. It's difficult to do music intended for male voices with a choir which is 70% female, and altos alone on the contra wasn't cutting it. Not even the kind of women I like can produce a low D, let alone a low D with any volume. I think I would have split altos and tenors into 3 parts and combined them on each relevant line. That may seem a rather Shawian solution for early music, where tenors should sound like tenors, basses like basses, etc. But projecting the pitches is the Prime Directive. Anyway, Paul did sanction tenor support of the altos when we didn't have anything else to do, and I was in good voice with all the singing and reeding, so I took it on myself to join the altos. After the evening concert, I had 3 people thank me and compliment me on my beautiful (?) voice. That means I'm helping; it also means I'm sticking out. Hmmm...
Fortune's Wheel (with David Douglass and Grant Herreid replacing Shira Kammen) was fantastic. Their program was mostly Dufay, with some Banchois, Busnoys, Grenon and Lantins. I've never heard Dufay sung with such propulsion; even the "white clouds in blue sky" pieces were moving through the sky. They began with a shock-and-awe rendition of "Donnes l'assault", as if to shout to the ghost of David Munrow, "We don't need no steenkin' sackbuts!". There was a good balance between "hits" and unknown pieces, and some of the hits were represented by instrumental improvisation on their content. In "Malheureulx cueur", Lydia Knutson found an expressionist style within period style which reminded me of Schoenberg in its intensity. It sent shivers up my spine. (Maybe good for business; she's a practicing chiropractor.)
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