RSCM Report, part two: Some thoughts on Renaissance polyphony

In some respects, the most challenging piece in our repertoire was the Ave Maria by Robert Parsons (c. 1530-1570). For the singer, especially in the ATB parts, it is a doorway into another plane of existence. From the outset, we launch into long melismatic lines on the first words, Ave Maria. The tenor (which is what I sang) has twenty-four notes on the syllable “ri”; the other voice parts are similar. The melody goes on, and when you sense that it is nearing a cadence, it goes on some more, far beyond what I can sing in one breath, or even two or three.

Why? For what reason would a composer write such a ravishingly beautiful melody for two words, most of it for one syllable? And then bury it in the middle of the texture, where no one except the tenors will know how beautiful it is?

It is for love of Our Lady. Love even for her name, love overflowing into melody.

And that is not enough, for the basses and the two alto parts are also singing, their melodies equally beautiful, the four lower vocal parts overlapping one another, entwined most wonderfully. And finally, the trebles soar above the texture in long notes. At first, Ave. Just the one word, as if they cannot bear to go on. Then Ave Maria.

The music flows onward, phrase after phrase, each more beautiful than the last. Gratia plena. Benedicta tu. The melismas seek to show how completely full of grace she is, how blessed. Fifteen hundred years and more of painters and sculptors, of architects and poets, have sought to express this; I think that they fall short of the musicians. Perhaps it is because our art is participatory; one experiences it properly only by singing it. The choral art is communal, as well; no person can experience this motet without the other singers. Renaissance polyphony of this sort is one of the clearest expressions of community. The six vocal parts are thoroughly interdependent. As a singer, you focus on your own part, but you are constantly aware of the other parts, all related to one another, but each with its own melodic and rhythmic flow. So it is with the Kingdom of God.

The Parsons is a masterpiece. The Ave verum corpus of William Byrd (c. 1540-1623) is even more of a masterpiece. Three pages, only a few minutes - but every note is exactly what it should be. Offhand, the only thing to which I can compare it in size and perfection is the motet on the same text by W. A. Mozart, one of his finest works -- but the Byrd is its equal. Here, the music expresses devotion to the Real Presence of Christ in the transfigured Bread and Wine - at a time and place when both the theological truth and the Latin language were illegal. As Mr. Buzard told the choristers, this was never sung in public in Byrd’s lifetime; it was probably sung in secret at someone’s house, and probably with one person to a part. It is thus more intimate than the Parsons, each voice part more of an individual outpouring of love, of wonderment at the Sacred Mystery. But it is still four parts, no one complete in itself - still the expression of a community, albeit small. In our rehearsals at home, I told the choristers that the Byrd is a very great masterpiece, and I hoped that they would grow to love it as much as I do. Mr. Buzard said pretty much the same thing to them at the Course.

O dulcis,
O pie,
O Jesu fili Mariae,
Miserere mei.

For the most part, we have shied away from this repertoire at the RSCM courses. It is often challenging to maintain one’s own part with so much going on around it, and I suspect the idea is that it would be a bit much for young choristers to master in one week; also, it is less dramatic than music of later eras and (one might think) less immediately interesting to young singers.

I submit two points: First, it was not the trebles who found either the Parsons or the Byrd to be difficult; it was the ATBs. Second, one would need a heart of stone to remain unmoved in the singing of either of these motets. That is as true of a ten-year old chorister as it is of an old choirmaster like me. I wonder what it is like to experience something like the Byrd for the first time.

We sang these things at the Basilica of Saint Louis. Crowded onto the choral risers behind the Altar, surrounded by these my friends, many of them choristers from our parish, singing these things in such close proximity, the vocal parts interweaving into a whole, was an extraordinary experience. And I think we sang the Byrd with more connection than the Tallis Scholars in the recording linked below, or any of the several other recordings I sampled – perhaps because we had many trebles and teen ATBs for whom this was their first exposure to the piece.

Earlier, I gave short shrift to the visual artists. They are in fact part of this as well; the music needs the gorgeous large acoustic of the Basilica, about seven or eight seconds of reverberation. It is supported by the visual splendor; everywhere one looks in such a building, there are statues, mosaics, paintings, windows -- all pointing toward our Lord Christ. They are beautiful and compelling - but the music breathes life into the room.

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Here are YouTube recordings of the Parsons and the Byrd – not by us; some of our services were live-streamed, but I am not aware of any recordings that remain on the Net.