Extensive review of our last week’s Mannheim concert!
Read an English translation here...
https://www.nussbaum.de/.../graindelavoix-besonderes-des...
Unnatural music from the Middle Ages - this was the motto of the "Contre Nature" project by the "Graindelavoix" collective in Schwetzingen.
The experience of art - or music - being regarded as degenerate or unnatural if it does not follow any set rules is boundless and timeless. Against Nature - or in French: "Contre Nature" - was the name of the project by the experimental music collective "Graindelvoix" led by Björk Schmelzer from Antwerp.
It was no easy excursion into the 14th century when Graindelavoix performed a capella in the castle's "Long Hall" on the first Thursday evening in June. The vocal ensemble consisted of four singers with bass, baritone, tenor and countertenor voices, as well as two sopranos. They performed a total of nine songs from the late Middle Ages.
Review
And so that you weren't left completely alone with the rather unusual music, there was a pre- and post-performance discussion. - The 75-minute, well-attended concert was part of the Mannheim Summer.
There were two ways of approaching the performance. Either you left all possible expectations and prejudices behind, opened your ears and heart and simply enjoyed: lively, soulful voices moving from left to right in the room, dancing around each other, coming together, finding short parallel paths and harmony, intertwining and separating again, only to start another game.
Clearly identifiable, continuous melodies, verses, continuous rhythms or at least comprehensible lyrics were out of place. Thoughts were allowed to flow. One visitor described the experience as "meditative". "Calming", said another. Or you could take an informative look at the music before or after: the provocative title "Contre Nature" invites you to do so.
Unnatural
The concert began with the "Sanctus" from the "Messe de Nostre Dame" by Guillaume de Machaut, a canon of the recently completed Reims Cathedral who was born in Champagne.
This mass, which was later followed by the "Agnus Dei", is a milestone in music history: it is one of the oldest polyphonic settings of the Catholic liturgy, the Ordinary. Polyphony was a novelty at the time. Before that, liturgical chants were monophonic "Gregorian chorales". Contemporaries of the 14th century used the term "ars antiqua" to describe this older, monophonic compositional technique.
Different voices
In contrast to this was polyphony, the "ars nova", the new art. To explain briefly: in polyphony, the different voices developed independently, not as subordinate accompaniments, but as independent melodies and even with their own rhythm. In the old technique, the melody-leading voice was still the low tenor, but Guillaume de Machaut - one of the greatest composers of his time and an avant-gardist - assigned the melody to the upper voice, just as we are used to today. For all its complexity, there were fixed rules.
Nevertheless, this complex music provoked criticism - and even temporary bans - from the church fathers, who had always been rather conservative, on the grounds that it was "unnatural". But Machaut and his successors also composed for the nobility, who paid little heed to the church's objections.
The monstrous
In fact, Machaut's successors refined polyphonic music even further; a kind of mannerism emerged, a term from the visual arts in which things are depicted in an even more artificial way. Music historians call this further development at the end of the 14th century "Ars subtilior".
The music is "strange, disconcerting, full of dissonances and unusual leaps" - according to the text accompanying the concert in Schwetzingen.
The canons "Hélas Avril" by Matteo da Perugia and "Le ray au soleyl" by Johannes Ciconia are examples of the same melody being sung at different tempos; they seem to move forwards and backwards at the same time.
Echo or imitation
The ballad "Science na nul annemi" - Knowledge has no adversary - by Matteus de Sancto Johanne has almost theatrical-emotional moments: "Qui plus haut crie: "Hay avant," c'est trop bien fait, disons ainsy" (When someone shouts at the top of their voice: "I say: Ahead!" they are in a sense outdoing themselves) sounded like a two-part call with an echo or imitation.
The strange becomes the miraculous, the "mirabilium", the "merveil", the "monstrous". If the old laws of music had been interpreted as natural and pleasing to God, the new became the "unnatural". However, unnatural does not necessarily mean that it does not or must not exist, but rather calls for a confrontation.
Expressiveness
Graindelavoix face up to this confrontation. Because, according to founder Björn Schmelzer, on the one hand he resists clichéd associations with early music; on the other hand, the music of the past is our heritage, a reflection on the problems of our time and therefore contemporary.
For today's musicians and listeners, performance practice is becoming increasingly important. In the search for the living core (the group's name actually translates as "grain of the voice"), the focus is not on trained voices in the classical sense, but on the power of individual expression and creative interpretation of singers from different cultural backgrounds.
For the audience, this makes the performance earthy, tangible and miraculously emotionally comprehensible. The concert ended with a hearty round of applause. (rw)
