I will open this review by quoting my
own words when reviewing Cinquecento’s disc of Philippe
de Monte’s
Missa Ultimi miei sospiri last year (Hyperion
CDA67658). “The
group offered some very fine singing in this rich and rare
repertoire as you hear right from the
first moment of the first track”. ‘The Times’ reviewer
commented about their Regnart disc (
Hyperion
CDA67640) that “the sextet’s vocal technique is superb,
in solo performances as well as in ensemble”. If you have
come across their previous three discs you will know all
of this for yourself. It still surprises me that they have
only been singing together for just over four years. This
CD in the main continues the same high standards in quality
of performance and recording and in the rare beauty of
the repertoire.
The decision by Hyperion to adorn each
of Cinquecento’s discs with one of Archimbaldo’s extraordinary
flora and fruit portraits gives them a certain odd distinction.
The decision to record Vaet however is excellent. He was
a prolific composer of almost entirely sacred music including
nine mass settings and sixty-six motets. He died aged only
37 and was employed by the demanding Archduke Maximillian
II of Austria, a very significant patron at that time (see
JVV’s review of
CDA67579).
The highlight of the disc and the longest
work is the Mass ‘Ego flos campi’ but the other items are
equally interesting. I was especially moved by the ‘Salve
Regina’ one of eight by Vaet. It is an intense work, very
imitative and complex but singularly beautiful and quite
clearly indebted to plainchant.
But to the Mass which is based on a motet
by Clemens non Papa who was a generation older than Vaet
and whose motet comes, rather oddly I feel, at the end
of the CD. It’s worth hearing it before tackling this quite
lengthy mass setting. The motet is characterized by what
we now call a strong feeling of the pastoral major key
of F to illustrate the text which begins “I am the flower
of the field, and the lily of the valley’. Its opening
of a simple rising scale overlapping with the entry of
the next voice a fourth higher is also a feature used prodigiously
by Vaet. It acts as a head motif for each section except
for the Benedictus where it is inverted. Vaet probably
knew Clemens who, despite his somewhat tawdry reputation,
was highly considered by his contemporaries. The motet
is, unusually, in seven parts and Cinquecento is augmented
here by an extra tenor: Bernd Fröhlich. The Mass is in
six parts and another of its peculiarly attractive qualities
is the use of imitative phrases between the upper and lower
voices giving the piece a madrigalian quality. It rarely
moves out of its mode but when it does, often quite surprisingly,
there is a leap to the flattened 7
th in the
upper voice.
Vaet also has a connection with Orlando
Lassus. Not only must they have known each other but Vaet
sets a text by the court poet Charles Utenhoven in praise
of Duke Albrecht of Bavaria (‘Antevenis virides’) who was
Lassus’s patron. It is, not surprisingly, a very grand
work and might well benefit from having the ‘gravitas’ of
a larger choir perform it.
The Magnificat is a demanding work. Some
of its verses are, unusually, quite intricate duets which
vividly convey the sense of the texts. These are sung,
as was common at the time, ‘in alternatum’ with the plainchant.
The text of the ‘Miserere mei, Deus’ comes
from Psalm 51 and begins “Have mercy on me, God/according
to your great pity”. It had been set by many but it was
Josquin’s version of some thirty or forty years earlier
that had been published and become so very well known.
Vaet uses the simple semi-tonal melodic rising and falling
phrase which Josquin had almost overworked in his setting.
It acts as only an occasional reminder of the plainchant.
A case of humanistic society moving away from its dependence
on the church perhaps. Another, contrasting approach in
the use of plainsong is found in the rich and sonorous
six-voice Pentecostal motet ‘Spiritus Domini’. There it
can be heard in long notes as a
cantus firmus in
the bass.
That leaves just three more motets to
mention. Each is linked by a fairly new concept, no doubt
developing from the growing popularity of the madrigal,
that of word-painting. ‘Ecce apparebit Dominus’ concerns
the image of our Lord appearing in the high clouds. For
this Vaet begins with a strongly rising phrase overlapping
in fourths and fifths with other voices. If the booklet
notes are correct then in the contrasting “grandiose exhortation
of the second section”, (Jerusalem, rejoice at this great
day) the singers fail to characterize the music strongly
enough. Indeed dynamic contrast, at least not in the way
we now think of it is not found on the whole in this music.
It is therefore the way in which phrases are shaped with
dynamic colourings that really matters. Cinquecento do
this beautifully as in the brief ‘Filiae Jerusalem’. The
notes tell us that the “first, busy imitative point represents
the throng of Palm Sunday”. Again, this needs to have been
brought out a little more clearly. I fail to completely
understand this but the work appears to be a motet about
the religious martyrdom of Maximilian himself. ‘Musica
Dei donum’ is hardly a sacred text more a madrigalian,
humanistic one. The words “Music, the gift of the supreme
God,/draws men, draws gods” are set with the most mellifluous
phrases and sweet harmonies.
Vaet is a fine composer but on reflection
and having heard the music several times I am still not
sure of his real worth. It may be that even more expression
of the words is necessary but as I have said there is some
very fine singing here. I do hope however that Cinquecento
do not go down the same road as the Hilliard ensemble did
at one point in their recording career, that is to concentrate
too much on the sheer beauty of their sound at the expense
of the text. It may be the acoustic of the Austrian church
- I doubt it however because they have recorded there before
- but the enunciation and the clarity of the text is far
from clear. This is an area which needs constant attention
even amongst the greatest.
Gary Higginson
see also review by Brian
Wilson (April 2009 Recording
of the Month)
Cinquecento 
