The future of art music is safe as long as there are new generations of singers and instrumentalists and conductors willing to put their all into a musical enterprise. In the case of our baroque treasures, the current future is secured by people like England’s La Nuova Musica, which has just released Handel and Vivaldi settings of Dixit Dominus.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
A critic is supposed to approach each concert or disc with deliberate neutrality, so it’s a bit of a provocation to receive something from a group that introduces itself this way: “La Nuova Music is a vocal and instrumental ensemble dedicated to reinvograting the music of the European Renaissance and Baroque.”
It’s provocative because there are so many excellent ensembles the world over bringing this old music to brilliant life. So rather than listening neutrally, I listened with an attitude of, okay, show me.
The result is not dramatically different from the dozens of wonderful recordings we already have of Antonio Vivaldi’s In furore iustissimae, RV 626, and Dixit Dominus, RV 807, as well as George Frideric Handel’s setting of that same Psalm (109 in the old order, 110 in the modern sequence).
But the recording is excellent, marked by sharply articulated playing and singing in an historically informed style designed to provide every section of each piece with its own distinctive mood, character and colours.
Technically, the playing and singing are beyond reproach. The overall clarity is breathtaking, demonstrating conductor David Bates’ remarkably clear ideas about what this music should sound like.
Soprano Lucy Crowe is a huge treat in Vivaldi’s In furore, which is a test of any singer’s dramatic skills.
The whole makes for exciting, immediate musicmaking. You want to hear what comes next.
But this is hardly revolutionary, and that, in the end is not the point.
I think the real point is that Bates and his 20- and 30-something instrumentalists and singers are a hip, modern face on ancient music. The fact that they can bring to it the same degree of excitement as Bruno Mars, for example, is great — because a potential new audience can both see and hear itself in this group.
What I do wonder about, however, is how the texts of these pieces fit into the 21st century.
It’s unlikely that most people who will listen to this album will know the meaning and context of Psalm 110 (even the note-writers for the album booklet refer to it as Psalm 109), which is one of those belligerent calls for the crushing of anyone who stands in God’s way. The United Church in Canada has, for example, chosen not to include this Psalm in its current hymn book.
So it’s gorgeous music with a text that incites belligerent feelings. But if most people don’t know what it means, it doesn’t matter. Or does it?
Here’s the New International Version translation from the original Hebrew:
The Lord says to my lord:
“Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”
2 The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying,
“Rule in the midst of your enemies!”
3 Your troops will be willing on your day of battle.
Arrayed in holy splendor, your young men will come to you like dew from the morning’s womb.
4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind:
“You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
5 The Lord is at your right hand;
he will crush kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead
and crushing the rulers of the whole earth.
7 He will drink from a brook along the way,
and so he will lift his head high.
You can find out all the details about this album and La Nuova Musica here.
And this is a short making-of video:
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
