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GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2023 In October 2015 Ondine’s founder, Reijo Kiilunen – in conversation with Andrew Mellor – singled out Lotta Wennäkoski (b1970) as the Finnish composer of the new generation to watch: ‘Her highly individual way with orchestration, incredible economy of means and discernible musical goals make for music that cleanses the ear with its originality.’ All three compositions here prove the acuity of Kiilunen’s assessment: this is music that knows exactly where it is going and is happy to bring its audience along with it. The harp concerto Sigla (2022) was composed for the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s Israeli-born principal harpist, Sivan Magen, with whom Wennäkoski worked to exploit the instrument’s full potential in terms of sonority and differences of timbre between its registers. The harp, says Wennäkoski, ‘is the motor that brings the colours of the orchestra to life’, and Magen audibly relishes his role at the centre of events within Sigla’s at times fragile, always precisely imagined sound world. Typically for this composer, the title adds an extra layer to her conception, with a variety of meanings in different languages, reflected to varying degrees in the piece, albeit not always explicitly. Sedecim (2016) is a triptych commissioned to mark the centenary of the Sibelius Academy Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1916 (the title is Latin for sixteen). Wennäkoski based each movement on an event in that terrible year: respectively, the first publication of the poetry of Edith Södergran, the killing zones of Great War north-eastern France and a theme from Erkki Melartin’s Fifth Symphony. The central movement, ‘Zone rouge (1916-)’, has a tragic, numbed depth that is utterly compelling. The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s performances are superb, directed masterfully by Nicholas Collon, beautifully balanced and recorded in first-rate sound. Warmly recommended. Guy Rickards ‘Phrases’ Aperghis Récitations 3, 8, 9 & 11 Frances‑Hoad Something More Than Mortal Leith yhyhyhyhyha Mitchener whetdreemb Muhly Benedicite Recitationc J Stephenson Comme l’espoir/you might all disappeard Werner Confessional. Like Wordse. Mixed Phrasesf. Unspecified Intentions Werner/Martlew Syncopate Héloïse Werner sop with cDaniel Shao fl Héloïse Werner: a soprano of extraordinary range, tone and vocal abilities e Amy Harman bn fLawrence Power vn/va a Colin Alexander vc dLaura Snowden gtr b Calum Huggan perc Delphian (DCD34269 • 68’ • T) It is hard not to be in awe of Héloïse Werner: a soprano of extraordinary range, tone and vocal abilities, possessing a seemingly inexhaustible expressive range, whether singing, speaking or – as in Elaine Mitchener’s curious, nightmarish, baffling whetdreem – sighing, moaning, and is that snoring at one point? She is no mean vocal actress, either, as her rendition of Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s Something More Than Mortal, based on fragments from Ada Lovelace’s letters, attests. The comparisons with Cathy Berberian and Meredith Monk quoted in Delphian’s booklet are no exaggeration; there is something of Jane Manning, too, in her astonishing facility for contemporary music – unsurprisingly, as Werner is a composer and arranger of subtle imagination. Oh, and did I mention that she is a cellist as well? Her instrumental acumen is only evident using the cello as a percussion accompaniment in the vibrant Syncopate, one of two brief extracts from her solo opera The Other Side of the Sea (the other track is Confessional, where she plays a crotale). In both pieces, wordplay – whether sung, spoken or half-sung – is the crucial element of the musical effect. So, too, in the four Récitations by Georges Aperghis, from the set of 14 for solo female voice (1978). No 3 is purely verbal (alas, none of the texts for the Récitations are included in the booklet), No 8 an ostinato between repetitive spoken patterns and sung notes, features reversed in No 9 and explored further in No 11. The effect is mesmerising if exhausting. If Aperghis moves to the edge of music – Mitchener, arguably, beyond it – elsewhere there are less unconventional measures of Werner’s interpretative range, from the euphonious – Josephine Stephenson’s Comme l’espoir/you might all disappear (beautifully accompanied by guitarist Laura Snowden) and Nico Muhly’s Benedicite Recitation (Daniel Shao the sensitive accompanying flautist), to Oliver Leith’s discomforting and somewhat dreary study in repetition, yhyhyhyhyh. It is Werner’s own pieces that I will come back to most often, though: Mixed Phrases, Unspecified Intentions and especially the opening track for voice and bassoon, Like Words, with the terrific Amy Harman as her partner. It sounds like a medieval chanson the identity of which, maddeningly, remains just out of reach. Delphian’s sound is first-rate, catching the full dynamic range and every nuance of Werner’s voice. Guy Rickards PHO T O G R A P H Y E R N E R E M M A W : 24 GRAMOPHONE 24 GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2023 gramophone.co.uk
page 25
Early Music GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2023 Byrd Psalmes, Songs and Sonnets The Sixteen; Fretwork / Harry Christophers Coro (COR16193 b • 90’ • T) With 2023 marking the 400th anniversary of William Byrd’s death, you might be expecting a surge in recordings of his sacred choral works, and if so, I would advise you strongly not to pass over this largely secular collection. It is an extraordinarily poignant release that will delight, distract and could also, potentially, recalibrate our thinking about the late, great Byrd. These Psalmes, Songs and Sonnets, which Byrd intended ‘to content ever y humour: eit her melancholy, merr y, or mixt of both’, are his last full publication, and it’s somewhat surprising that although there are several well-known pieces here, the collection hasn’t before been presented in a single release. The year 1611 must have been a big one when you consider that it contained Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the King James Bible as well as this songbook from arguably England’s greatest Renaissance composer. Despite advancing age, Byrd was on particularly good form, even by his own standards, running a strikingly wide gamut of emotions throughout this collection. It’s telling that he himself described the pieces as ‘some solemne, others joyfull, framed to the life of the Words’. So what better ensembles than The Sixteen and Fretwork to navigate us through the varying combinations of voices and viols that Byrd expected to likely be his swansongs? To perform this whole collection intact, The Sixteen have morphed from soloists and trios through varying combinations of voices to a full verseanthem choir with viols, and along the way they have explored the extraordinary variety of moods and textures within. These remarkable late works may be something of a retrospective: madrigals rub shoulders with psalms, but they are all performed with much tender beauty and care, with each one carrying the hallmarks of Byrd’s impressive technique. In fact, it is striking to note just how pared-down the venerable composer’s late style can be, as if all that Tudor turmoil were distilled into the directness of ‘What is life, or worldly pleasure?’, which is sung with a gorgeous control of line and tone. This is deeply impressive consort-singing, the sort where the silence between the phrases is pregnant with meaning. Then there’s the slippery, modulatory five-voice ‘Come woeful Orpheus’, where Harry Christophers’s tempo navigates the ‘strange chromatic notes’ of both lyrics and music with a serenity that allows Byrd’s unusual harmonies to carry the message to a final, shimmering chord. Following this, the joyful and sprightly sopranos in ‘Sing we merrily unto God’ is one of my favourite tracks. Despite Byrd mixing joyful and solemn songs, it’s the joyful that really stand out. Yes, there are madrigals and quasimadrigals here – most notably an elegant performance of ‘This sweet and merry month of May’ – but you will find no forced jollity or fa-la-la-ing in either this collection or these performances. Taking his cue from Byrd’s own apparent restraint, Harry Christophers combines genuine touches of excitement with serenity: listen especially for the infamous ‘warbling throats’ in ‘Awake mine eyes’, which Byrd scholar Kerry McCarthy suggests he must have been writing with his tongue in his cheek. The Sixteen clearly grasp the humour but, thankfully, don’t send it up. I particularly enjoyed the virtuoso threepart music, with bright, agile solo voices from The Sixteen emphasising the sparkling, soaring soprano parts and dexterous tenorwriting. There is also a world of contrasting emotion between, for instance, ‘In winter cold’ with text by Geffrey Whitney and the psalm-setting ‘Sing ye to our Lord a new song’, with its nifty triple rhythms. The singers are certainly animated by this music but never overwhelmed: despite several lines spanning two octaves and demanding much agility from each performer, it always sounds luminous and free. No mean feat. Fretwork perform the glorious four-part Fantasia with a rich tone and many neatly articulated phrases. They are, however, at their sumptuous best with Katy Hill in ‘O God that guides the cheerful sun’ and Elisabeth Paul in ‘How vain the toils’. Having loved their 2019 recording of ‘Turn our captivity, O Lord’ with Clare Wilkinson (Signum), I was delighted to find that an all-vocal performance here could be just as magical, the use of text on each part not distracting from the delicate, imitative opening at all. This is a landmark release finally addressing one of the most obvious oversights in Byrd’s recorded catalogue. It’s an exquisite album of unparalleled beauty that will bear repeated listening long past the anniversary year, and Kerry McCarthy’s generous essay makes a superb companion and guide. Edward Breen Cristo Alma redemptoris mater. Ave Maria. Ave maris stella. Ave regina caelorum. Beata Dei genitrix. Beata viscera Mariae. Magnificat octavi toni. Missa Salve regina. Quae est ista. Regina caeli. Salve regina. Sancta et immaculata. Stabat mater. Virgo prudentissima Cupertinos / Luís Toscano Hyperion (CDA68393 • 75’ • T/t) It is a deep pleasure to hear this ensemble flourish. Since winning the 2019 Gramophone Early Music Award it has become increasingly obvious that the singers of Cupertinos and their musicologist-director Luís Toscano have a unique take on the golden age of Portuguese polyphony, and this is only further strengthened by this new release of Marian works by the extraordinarily underrecorded Pedro de Cristo (c1550-1618). But this recording is much more than a programme of musical treasures, it is also a milestone for Cupertinos: the arrival of a more confident, robust sound and, crucially, new-found rhythmic drive. All of this is most noticeable in the opening eight-voice Magnificat. Unpublished in Cristo’s lifetime, it’s a meaty and well-crafted work with energetic double-choir textures and great splices of attention-grabbing homophony reminiscent of Hieronymus Praetorius (1560-1629). Cupertinos work these contrasts: after much antiphony, the verse ‘Et misericordia eius’ is a delicate snowflurry of upper-voice, imitative polyphony gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2023 2525

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Early Music

GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2023

Byrd Psalmes, Songs and Sonnets The Sixteen; Fretwork / Harry Christophers Coro (COR16193 b • 90’ • T)

With 2023 marking the 400th anniversary of William Byrd’s death, you might be expecting a surge in recordings of his sacred choral works, and if so, I would advise you strongly not to pass over this largely secular collection. It is an extraordinarily poignant release that will delight, distract and could also, potentially, recalibrate our thinking about the late, great Byrd. These Psalmes, Songs and Sonnets, which Byrd intended ‘to content ever y humour: eit her melancholy, merr y, or mixt of both’, are his last full publication, and it’s somewhat surprising that although there are several well-known pieces here, the collection hasn’t before been presented in a single release.

The year 1611 must have been a big one when you consider that it contained Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the King James Bible as well as this songbook from arguably England’s greatest Renaissance composer. Despite advancing age, Byrd was on particularly good form, even by his own standards, running a strikingly wide gamut of emotions throughout this collection. It’s telling that he himself described the pieces as ‘some solemne, others joyfull, framed to the life of the Words’. So what better ensembles than The Sixteen and Fretwork to navigate us through the varying combinations of voices and viols that Byrd expected to likely be his swansongs? To perform this whole collection intact, The Sixteen have morphed from soloists and trios through varying combinations of voices to a full verseanthem choir with viols, and along the way they have explored the extraordinary variety of moods and textures within.

These remarkable late works may be something of a retrospective: madrigals rub shoulders with psalms, but they are all performed with much tender beauty and care, with each one carrying the hallmarks of Byrd’s impressive technique. In fact, it is striking to note just how pared-down the venerable composer’s late style can be, as if all that Tudor turmoil were distilled into the directness of ‘What is life, or worldly pleasure?’, which is sung with a gorgeous control of line and tone. This is deeply impressive consort-singing, the sort where the silence between the phrases is pregnant with meaning. Then there’s the slippery, modulatory five-voice ‘Come woeful Orpheus’, where Harry Christophers’s tempo navigates the ‘strange chromatic notes’ of both lyrics and music with a serenity that allows Byrd’s unusual harmonies to carry the message to a final, shimmering chord. Following this, the joyful and sprightly sopranos in ‘Sing we merrily unto God’ is one of my favourite tracks.

Despite Byrd mixing joyful and solemn songs, it’s the joyful that really stand out. Yes, there are madrigals and quasimadrigals here – most notably an elegant performance of ‘This sweet and merry month of May’ – but you will find no forced jollity or fa-la-la-ing in either this collection or these performances. Taking his cue from Byrd’s own apparent restraint, Harry Christophers combines genuine touches of excitement with serenity: listen especially for the infamous ‘warbling throats’ in ‘Awake mine eyes’, which Byrd scholar Kerry McCarthy suggests he must have been writing with his tongue in his cheek. The Sixteen clearly grasp the humour but, thankfully, don’t send it up.

I particularly enjoyed the virtuoso threepart music, with bright, agile solo voices from The Sixteen emphasising the sparkling, soaring soprano parts and dexterous tenorwriting. There is also a world of contrasting emotion between, for instance, ‘In winter cold’ with text by Geffrey Whitney and the psalm-setting ‘Sing ye to our Lord a new song’, with its nifty triple rhythms. The singers are certainly animated by this music but never overwhelmed: despite several lines spanning two octaves and demanding much agility from each performer, it always sounds luminous and free. No mean feat.

Fretwork perform the glorious four-part Fantasia with a rich tone and many neatly articulated phrases. They are, however, at their sumptuous best with Katy Hill in ‘O God that guides the cheerful sun’ and Elisabeth Paul in ‘How vain the toils’. Having loved their 2019 recording of

‘Turn our captivity, O Lord’ with Clare Wilkinson (Signum), I was delighted to find that an all-vocal performance here could be just as magical, the use of text on each part not distracting from the delicate, imitative opening at all.

This is a landmark release finally addressing one of the most obvious oversights in Byrd’s recorded catalogue. It’s an exquisite album of unparalleled beauty that will bear repeated listening long past the anniversary year, and Kerry McCarthy’s generous essay makes a superb companion and guide. Edward Breen

Cristo Alma redemptoris mater. Ave Maria. Ave maris stella. Ave regina caelorum. Beata Dei genitrix. Beata viscera Mariae. Magnificat octavi toni. Missa Salve regina. Quae est ista. Regina caeli. Salve regina. Sancta et immaculata. Stabat mater. Virgo prudentissima Cupertinos / Luís Toscano Hyperion (CDA68393 • 75’ • T/t)

It is a deep pleasure to hear this ensemble flourish. Since winning the 2019

Gramophone Early Music Award it has become increasingly obvious that the singers of Cupertinos and their musicologist-director Luís Toscano have a unique take on the golden age of Portuguese polyphony, and this is only further strengthened by this new release of Marian works by the extraordinarily underrecorded Pedro de Cristo (c1550-1618). But this recording is much more than a programme of musical treasures, it is also a milestone for Cupertinos: the arrival of a more confident, robust sound and, crucially, new-found rhythmic drive.

All of this is most noticeable in the opening eight-voice Magnificat. Unpublished in Cristo’s lifetime, it’s a meaty and well-crafted work with energetic double-choir textures and great splices of attention-grabbing homophony reminiscent of Hieronymus Praetorius (1560-1629). Cupertinos work these contrasts: after much antiphony, the verse ‘Et misericordia eius’ is a delicate snowflurry of upper-voice, imitative polyphony gramophone.co.uk

GRAMOPHONE GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2023 2525

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