"Either Gombert
is almost the greatest composers of
the 16th Century or he’s
the most boring", thus spoke my
young, good-looking, female ex-pupil
friend up from university. She is studying
early music specifically so I listened
further as we opened a bottle of Burgundy,
pulled two chairs closer to the log
fire and spent the evening ... yes you’ve
guessed it: listening to various Gombert
recordings ... what else! It’s not such
an easy thing to do, as there have not
been that many records devoted to his
music. It seems also that he is not
easily anthologized, at least not in
the case of his church music. The one
possible exception is ‘Lugebat David
Absalon’ which may well be by Gombert’s
teacher, Josquin des Pres. Some of his
eighty secular pieces seem to have fared
a little better ... but not much.
As we listened various
simple but telling facts began to emerge:-
(1) This is densely
contrapuntal music with close points
of imitation which are continuous over
a long time-span; much longer than that
of many of his contemporaries.
(2) This is not music
therefore that should be sung on automatic
pilot. It needs sensitive handling.
Choirs singing some of the more elderly
performances we heard seemed not to
realise this point.
(3) This is passionate
and intense music. Dynamic changes should
be made: sometimes in line with the
text and sometimes in line with the
exigencies of the music itself.
(4) These pieces work
especially well on this CD with the
all-male voices of Henry’s Eight - which
includes, by the way, that superb counter-tenor
William Towers - especially as the tessitura
in most editions lies within a confined
range.
So, we reached the
conclusion that these performances by
Henry’s Eight fulfil all of the above
criteria. Intense, superb tuning, passionate,
thoughtful throughout and rarely on
automatic pilot. Furthermore they are
superbly recorded in an ideal acoustic.
With that I could end
the review. But you probably wouldn’t
thank me for such brevity leaving you,
mouth-wateringly in need of more detail
and neither would our website editor.
However you must understand from the
start that I am totally converted to
Gombert by these performances.
So let’s look at some
pieces a little closer beginning with
‘Lugebat David Absalon’, the best known
one and yet the most elusive. This is
a setting of the famous lament on the
death of Absalom. Gombert divides the
text in half with similar music for
the second half. In this fine performance
Henry’s Eight allow the music to reach
a fine, gloriously powerful and fulfilling
climax.
This work is a ‘contrafactum’,
rather like a musical palimpsest: it
exists in the same musical format almost
exactly but with different words, as
a secular song ‘Je prens congie’ - although
the booklet notes fail to mention this
title - with a curious text beginning
"I say goodbye to my loves, which
I have left behind." The date of
composition is unknown. You can hear
this version on the Huelgas Ensemble’s
disc ‘Music from the Court of Charles
V’ (Sony SK 48249 probably nla but worth
searching out). It can also be heard
in an instrumental version played beautifully
by the Orchestra of the Renaissance
under Richard Cheetham (Virgin Veritas
7243 5 45203 2 7).
‘Qui colis Ausonium’
is "an occasional work" to
quote the very interesting booklet notes
by John O’Donnell. It was written for
the signing of a peace treaty by, amongst
others, Gombert’s patron Charles V of
Spain. The composer worked in Spain
from 1526 to 1538. The major-sounding
tonality of the key is unusual for Gombert
and I wondered, just in this piece,
if Henry’s Eight might not have misjudged
the tempo. My on-hand young expert is
quite convinced that the solemnity of
the occasion would have been better
preserved by the slow tactus.
The eight-part Credo
is a very good example of Gombert’s
style with its close imitation and rolling
repetitious phrases. This approach helps
to create a sense of a double choir
motet. Incidentally one-off mass movements
like this were not unusual at this time.
Gombert is credited with eleven full-scale
mass settings and this fine work does
not fit into any of them. Oddly enough
it does however seem to have some kind
of musical relationship with ‘Lugebat’
discussed above. At no point in its
twelve and a half minutes does one’s
interest wane. This is as much down
to the performance as the music. Again
Henry’s Eight help to create a sense
of growing architecture as they build
towards the final A-men, but
still not forgetting to vary dynamics
as often as seems suitable.
The other work which
needs highlighting on this fine disc
is the seemingly curious ‘Salve regina
(‘Diversi diversa orant) for four voices.
The meaning of the title is best translated
as ‘Different people pray different
things’: I quote James O’Donnell. This
work employs "seven Marian texts
and paraphrases of their plainsong melodies.
The cantus paraphrases the Salve Regina
... the altus the ‘Ave Regina caelorum’
... the tenor commences with the sequence
‘Inviolata. Integra es’ ... the bassus
paraphrases the ‘Alma Redemptoris mater’".
Incidentally there are other plainsongs
used but what they have in common is
that they are all addressed to the Blessed
Virgin in different ways. This is a
compositional tour de force and
both the performance and clear recording
do the work full justice.
Three of the motets
are preceded by their appropriate plainsong
intonations. It is a pity that more
were not treated in such a way.
This is a very fine
disc and now at budget price it is even
more of an attractive proposition. Full
texts and translations are given. Buy
it.
Gary Higginson
Henry’s Eight/Jonathan Brown 
for
details
