The Music of San Marco - Andres Mustonen (Estonia) directs the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra and Hortus Musicus in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

Photo: Maxim Reider

For Concert No.4 of the JBO’s 2018-2019 concert series, the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra was joined by violinist/conductor Andres Mustonen (Estonia) and his ensemble, Hortus Musicus (Estonia).  The collaboration - “Music of San Marco” - was also an event of the 2019 Mustonenfest. This writer attended the concert at the Jerusalem International YMCA on February 17th 2019.

 

This concert explored the music of several composers and the style of music that defined St Mark's Venice in the period that saw the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras, the practice of “cori spezzati” (divided choirs) - music performed by multiple choirs, often in alternation, in what later became known as the “Venetian polychoral style”. At St. Mark’s Basilica, this style of music was developed in a kind of institutional way, dependant on the church’s specific architecture, the availability of certain instruments, certain musicians, and especially by the presence of certain composers. Venice – and St. Mark’s in particular, one of the most prestigious musical institutions in Italy – were at the forefront of musical trends for nearly a century. At the Jerusalem concert, offering a representative selection of works from key figures, most of the works written and/or performed at St Mark's, several of them featuring two “choirs” - the JBO (strings, theorbo, harpsichord) and Hortus Musicus (strings, recorders, early winds, percussion, organ), indeed, two distinctly different ensembles in timbre - entering into musical dialogue. At San Marco, the groups, placed in different parts of the basilica, engaging in antiphonal performance, were also not necessarily equal in instrumental (or choral) combinations.

 

The program opened with both ensembles performing two pieces from Biagio Marini’s “Affetti Musicali” (1617). Each of the 26 pieces of this collection was given a descriptive sobriquet after prominent Venetian family names. In his introduction to the publication, Marini refers to the theory of “conversazione” (conversation). His compositions may have been intended as ‘test’ pieces, meant to inspire conversation among his listeners, thereby arousing their “affetti”. In their published form, the “Affetti musicali” constitute a record of those discussions and the affetti they inspired, as well as conventions of vocal music.  Marini also suggested that instrumental music might convey emotional content equal to that of vocal music.  Marini reached Venice in 1615, joining Monteverdi’s group at San Marco. The concert’s rich selection of antiphonal works included a geographically-inspired piece “La Padovana” by Lodovico Viadana, its colourful exchange the synthesis of polyphonic instrumental music for two (instrumental) choirs, as had developed in Venice. Gioseffo Guami received some of his early training at San Marco probably as early as 1557, studying with Adrian Willaert and Annibale Padovano, then serving there as a singer, in 1588 being appointed to the post of St. Mark’s first organist. Most of his instrumental music was published in a collection of 1601. Two of his double-choir canzonas, comprising many and varied short sections, were heard at the concert. One of the key figures of the Basilica was, of course, was Giovanni Gabrieli. Greatly influenced by (his uncle) Andrea Gabrieli’s writing for cori spezzati, Giovanni brought the spatial technique to a sublime level, a marriage of sound and space; he even received permission to hire freelance singers and players to enlarge the virtuoso ensemble which had been established in 1567. Contrasting their tempos, metres, and rhythms, Mustonen conducted and led several of G.Gabrieli’s innovative canzonas. Claudio Monteverdi took over the management of San Marco’s music program in 1613. The Jerusalem concert featured several of the illustrious Monteverdi’s vocal works (with instruments) - both sacred and secular pieces - opening with “Zefiro torna” (Zephyr returns) to a text by Ottavio Rinuccini. Scored for two tenors and continuo, using a constantly recurring bass line, with dissonances used with great freedom as an expressive tool. Hortus Musicus members tenor Anto Õnnis and baritone Tõnis Kaumann addressed the work’s graceful yet florid vocal lines and its word painting with spontaneity and exuberance. Bass Riho Ridbeck joined the two above-mentioned singers in a theatrical performance of “Dell’usate mie corde” (To the sound of my worn strings) with its strong contrast between expressions of anger and those of love, a piece from Monteverdi’s 8th Book of Madrigals suitably titled "Warlike and Amorous Madrigals”. The program also included two of Monteverdi’s sacred motets. In “Salve Regina” (Hail, holy Queen) Õnnis and Kaumann’s voices wove convincingly in close imitation and canon to create the prayer’s brooding soundscape, the work then concluding with an ecstatic invocation. The three singers joined to give a finely blended performance of the strophic Christmas hymn  “Christe Redemptor omnium” (Christ the Redeemer of all), its atmosphere not indicative of the fact that the piece’s origins were, in fact, a contrafactum (a secular work.)

 

The Jerusalem International YMCA may not be the right venue for the acoustic effects and ceremonious grandeur of music of the Venetian polychoral style; still, Andres Mustonen drew all the threads of the program together, partnering the highly-coloured Hortus Musical sound with the elegant Jerusalem Baroque sound and incorporating the very beautiful and informed singing of Hortus Musicus’ vocal soloists.

 

Photo: Yoel Levy