The 2019 Vocal Fantasy Festival opens with two chamber concerts at the Jerusalem International YMCA

 

Māris Kupčs (courtesy Latvian Academy of Music)

Under the auspices of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra, and directed by the JBO’s musical director David Shemer, the second Vocal Fantasy Festival was a sparkling summer event, offering three  days of musical events taking place at the Jerusalem International YMCA from July 25th to 27th 2019. The Vocal Fantasy Festival gives centre stage to the human voice and to vocal music in general. This year’s program presented music from the 12th century to that of today. Guest artists hailed from Latvia, Lithuania and Switzerland. 

 

Two chamber concerts opened the festival. In “Schütz’ German Requiem” (Concert No.2), the Collegium Choro Musici Riga, under its chorus master Māris Kupčs (accompanying on organ), and joined by Israeli viola da gamba player Tal Arbel, gave festival-goers the rare opportunity of hearing sacred chamber works of Heinrich Schütz, seldom heard on these shores. Maestro Kupčs offered some interesting information on the works performed. Schütz published two volumes of “Kleine geistliche Konzerte” (Small Sacred Concertos) in the 1630s; the pieces  are mostly solos, duets and trios, the use of the word "concerto" here simply implies that the music is designed for a small group of vocal performers with only basso continuo accompaniment, thus drawing attention to the rhetoric of the texts and highlighting  Schütz’ fine setting of the German language. In the intimate scoring of these sacred works, sopranos Ilze Grevele-Skaraine and Tereze Gretere and tenor Ansis Betins displayed the fine interweaving of voices of these small gems. This was followed by another (little known) masterpiece - Schütz’ “Musikalische Exequien” (1636) - a Lutheran funeral Mass to German texts, written for the funeral of Prince Heinrich Posthumus Reuss, a member of the ruling family of the region in which Schütz was born. Considered to be the first German requiem, it was written for six to eight voices plus ripieno singers (a six-voice choir) with basso continuo accompaniment on the organ. Among the most inspired of all his works, Schütz himself thought highly enough of the Exequien. A complex work, it falls into three parts, its profound theological meaning based on scriptural passages alternating with hymn verses. With the choral sections firmly based on German choral tradition, the work offered a fine opportunity to hear several of the singers either solo or duetting, these moments often florid, written in the Italian manner. For the third section, Kupcs placed one group of singers at the end of the hall, this movement for double choir recalling Schütz’ studies in antiphonal writing with the earlier Venetian composers. The singers’ well-defined German enunciation indicated genuine understanding of the texts.

 

In the other chamber concert, “Nisi Dominus” (Concert No.1), Israeli artists Noam Schuss (violin), Orit Messer Jacobi (‘cello) and Aviad Stier (harpsichord) were joined by Lithuanian bass Nerijus Masevičius.in a program of mostly European Baroque music. The instrumental section of the program gave the stage to each of the players, the one Renaissance work being William Byrd’s Fantasia in a-minor, played by Aviad Stier on a single-manual Italian harpsichord. Consisting of an unbroken continuum of small sections, its diversity demonstrating the unlimited scope of Byrd’s imagination, Stier negotiated the work’s intricate rhythms, surprise modulations and changing textures, employing impressive dexterous virtuosity.in the dazzling finale. Relaxing the pace of the occasional section might have created more contrast of mood. Prior to her performance of ‘cello virtuoso Domenico Gabrielli’s Ricercar No.7 for ‘cello and keyboard; Orit Messer Jacobi spoke of the ‘cello, with its impressive range and wide variety of tonal colours, as supplanting the viol and coming into its own as a solo instrument in the 17th century. Messer Jacobi’s playing was finely chiselled, both forthright and personal, as she gave expression to the work's virtuosic demands, its rapid passagework and double-stopping, addressing the importance of its dissonances and the resonant qualities of the instrument. Moving on a generation, Noam Schuss and Aviad Stier illuminated the equal roles of J.S.Bach’s obbligato writing in Sonata for violin and harpsichord in E major BWV 1016,  the opening Adagio of this sonata da chiesa Italianate in the style of its ornamental melodic writing; this and the give-and-take of the third movement (a  passacaglia, untypical in its changing keys) were played with exquisite detail, to be  punctuated by movements of intense and vivid three-way conversation and imitation. 

 

Nerijus Masevičius and the instrumentalists performed an aria from “Ich will den Kreuzweg gerne gehen” (I wish to follow in the way of the cross) a Passion cantata from one of G.P.Telemann’s more than 1400 surviving cantatas (text: Erdmann Neumeister). Masevičius’ rich, stable timbre, the violin’s substantial part in the conveying of the text, also some fine solo moments for ‘cello, made for rewarding listening. Masevičius singing of Heinrich Biber’s “Nisi Dominus” (Psalm 127) was warm, judiciously nuanced, definite in gestures and alive with word-painting, with Schuss’ playing heightening the meaning of the text. J.S.Bach’s “So oft ich meine Tobackspfeife” (Enlightening Thoughts of a Tobacco Smoker) in D minor, BWV 515 for bass voice, violin and basso continuo, a song discussing the metaphysics of pipe-smoking, draws our attention to the frequent, lively musical get-togethers at the Bach home. The aria, whose verbal text was probably written by Bach himself, appears in the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach (1725). Eyeing the audience, Masevičius entertained us with the song’s good cheer, whimsy and its dancelike rhythm; the lyrics also have an austere side to them, comparing man's transitory existence to that of a clay pipe

“Each time I take my pipe ’n tobacco 

With goodly wad filled to the brim 
For fun and passing time with pleasure, 
It brings to me a thought so grim 
And adds as well this doctrine fair: 
That I’m to it quite similar…”    English Translation © Z. Philip Ambrose

Nerijus Masevičius (courtesy Canto Fiorito)