The Pure sound of Madrigal Music
Rottweil: The last summer concert of this year took place in the Prediger Kirche on Sunday evening. The English vocal ensemble Musica in Maschera travelled to Germany specially to give this concert. The ensemble, which normally consists of 8 male and female singers, was founded 8 years ago in order to sing at various events in authentic costume. However, choral music from the Golden Age of English music is also part of their programme. That implies the Golden Age of the Madrigal, in the time of Shakespeare. This lyrically musical form had come to England from Italy and was immensely popular. In particular, in the England of 16th and 17th centuries the a cappella style of the madrigal with its combination of several solo voices and its pastoral character was popular over a broad range. The voices are introduced one by one so that each singer performs short musical phrases which are taken up by the other voices. In this way, the typical pure and delicate sound of Madrigal music is developed, which requires a special type of vocal discipline, for example no vocal vibrato.
It was a great pleasure to hear these six singers( 4 women and 2 men) in the Prediger Kirche and to see the concentration which they brought to this difficult but seemingly effortless music. With one or two minor exceptions, the sought-after purity of sound and balance of the individual voices was achieved.
The pieces which were performed were generally very short and of religious content, like the Cantate Domini of Giuseppe Pitoni and O come ye servants of the Lord by Christopher Tye, or two pieces by William Byrd, the best known of the English composers of the period. In John Reynolds’s O my God I cry and Benedetto Marcello’s Give ear unto me, Kate Gardner and Sue McIntyre Walker ere the soloists, while the leader of the ensemble Adrian Moore played the organ.
He played organ solos including a fugue by Georg Bohm and also the sparkling John Rutter piece for organ which brought the concert to a close.
As an encore, the six singers including Jo Tucker (soprano) Anne Furze (alto) and Roger Harding (tenor) gave a brief insight into their alternative repertoire. They sang a South African gospel song where the text was a combination of English and Zulu. The concert was very well-attended and provided yet further evidence of the warmth with which these summer concerts are received.