Search - The Choir of Sidney Sussex College - Cambridge;QuintEssential;Andrew Lawrence-King;Christopher Watson - tenor;Robert Macdonald - bass :: Ludwid Senfl: Missa Pascalis Motteten & Lieder

From the ancient church of St Emmeram in Regensburg, Bavaria, comes this new recording of music for the Emperor Maximilian I. An Easter Mass by court composer Ludwig Senfl (c1486-1543) is sung by the acclaimed Choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. They are joined on this occasion by QuintEssential, playing ancient brass instruments. Plus solo songs and harp music with Andrew Lawrence-King, harp, and vocal soloists including stunning bass Robert Macdonald. THE MUSIC & THE RECORDING This recording highlights Senfl's mastery of the many musical styles within which he worked. The centrepiece is his Missa Paschalis (or Easter Mass), scored for five voices including two equal upper parts. Following earlier traditions, the Kyrie and Gloria [1 & 2] and the Sanctus and Agnus Dei [6 & 7] are paired, though it would appear that the latter set was extracted from another of Senfl's masses. Each pair are in different modes, and while the Kyrie and Gloria are based on the chant for Easter Day, the chant present in the Sanctus and Agnus Dei is assigned to Sundays in Advent and Lent, hence their separation on this recording. Senfl's Mass is open to many interpretations regarding instrumentation and performance. Numerous woodcuts from the period indicate that early German music (sacred and secular) was often accompanied by cornetts and sackbuts and this solution is explored here. Certainly when the plainsong cantus firmus is present in each movement the composed voices surrounding that part become more animated and more instrumental in character - and the mixture of full choir, solo voices and instruments heard here seems to provide a satisfactory series of contrasts within what could otherwise be a full, and perhaps relentless texture. The other choral works include Senfl's famous re-working of Josquin's 4-part Ave Maria into a grand 6-part motet [11], where one of the inner voices (here played by a solo shawm) repeats the opening phrase as a compositional anchor to the entire work. Senfl's part-writing is dense, (though the musical fingerprints of Josquin's original are clearly heard throughout) and this complexity suggests that the work is one of the most industrious of the many tributes to Josquin from the period. Quis dabit oculis [16] is attributed to Senfl in a printed edition of 1538. The music was actually composed by Costanzo Festa, but the motet was lightly reworked for performance, probably by Senfl himself, at Emperor Maximilian's funeral in 1519. Standing in stark contrast to the sacred works are Senfl's secular songs. Again several performance options are here possible. For the bass songs cornetts and sackbuts take the upper voices leaving the tune at the bottom of the texture to the soloist; the three songs recorded here [3, 10, 14] follow familiar themes of unrequited love and the chase. The tenor songs are accompanied by gothic harp, which is most effective in decorating the chant-like melodies of Ich stuend an einem Morgen [9] and the popular Italian song Fortuna desperata [15]. Totally different in character and mood is the boisterous and often 'blue' setting of Senfl's most infamous song Im Maien [5], which, rather than following more traditional themes of courtship, boldly highlights the 'kill'! The harp solos and songs were recorded in the chapel of Sidney Sussex College, during Andrew Lawrence-King's residency in Cambridge, while the remaining pieces were recorded in the church of St Emmeram in the town of Regensburg (not far from Augsburg where Senfl was a chorister). The Choir and Obsidian Records are most grateful to Herr Christof Hartmann of the Regensburger Domspatzen and the community of St Emmeram for their help and support in realising this project.