graindelavoix - Tasteful or Nauseating? 

Thanks a lot, also for subscribing! Telling friends and whoever else might be interested in this about me:mo is the most effective way to help the show find a wider audience, it's a grass-roots thing. :-)

Dear Nicholas, thank you for your comment, I'm happy to hear you enjoy the music! I agree that the gamut of expressions of the lute is far wider than phlegmatic whispering.

Hi Jay, that's a super nice comment, thank you very much - feels real good to read that! There are some videos with mostly theorbo on my channel, mostly done before me:mo, and I play some in the episodes on Salterio (#08) and Traverso (#12). There's really only one bit where I play (french) baroque lute, it's in the middle of my concert film "Roma 1623" (also on my channel). Not sure if I'm that proud of it, as it was in the middle of a live concert and I'm struggling through tuning problems as the thing was gut-strung. Anyway, you can have a listen there, if you like. There's a list of all the pieces in that video in it's description or comment section. All the best, hope you'll also enjoy the videos to come! Lukas

Done ! I'ma proud to be a "patron" ;)

sorry : I'm proud

Dear Gaetan, thank you so much! (I sent you an e-mail.)

Dear Jim, thank you for these kind words! I think I've heard Musica Reservata during my studies (we have a huge repository of early music vinyl in our library there), but I'll have to check again, this time with fresh ears. I'm also happy to hear you enjoy my playing. I am actually in the midst of trying to organize a CD recording (of Marco dall'Aquila), but as the recording market has changed a lot this is surprisingly difficult to manage... In the seventies my first LP would've been out by last autumn. Freaky hair-do and all. ;-)

I remember reading an article quoting a music critic of the time describing the most prominent female vocalist (whose name I forget) of the group as sounding like "a hyena with lockjaw". Pretty rock n roll stuff. I look forward to it! Embrace the hair, it helps!

Interesting dipping back into Music Reservata, which I have barely heard since my student days. I'm not sure their approach was as carefully researched as Björn Schmelzer's (although I'm open to correction there ;-) , but it certainly was a tonic and an antidote to the white bread English choral style that was still so prevalent. The same could be said, I think, for much of David Munrow's work (remind yourself by listening to his Agincourt Carol, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SW6EhketxYo.html), and even such strange outliers as Alfred Deller's Perotin recording(s). But in any case, I love this new recording!

Dear John, thank you for this comment, and I'm happy to hear you liked this presentation! The intention was definitely less to convince and more to inspire to have another look with a slightly different perspective. Regarding using our own judgement on historical sources: Absolutely agree. But then I'd have to ask why we don't apply it to the black dots on lines aswell. If we know so well what our artistic message and style is that we intentionally go for "modern approaches" to that old music, why are we still slavishly follow note for note for note and hardly write two of our own notes? And if the answer is: "Because the music composed by those people is so much better to our ears than everything we could possibly write ourselves?" - well how can one then be confident to consciously go for an approach fundamentally different from that of the composer and his contemporaries. Again, this thought isn't useful as an argument, but much more as a point of departure, an inspiration. Many thanks again, I hope to stay in touch! Lukas

Dear Christoph, thank you for this comment, I think our views there intersect, as in many other aspects. I must confess that I made the Tallis Scholars look somewhat "worse" in this video than they deserve, mostly just to more effectively illustrate my point in a short amount of time. Their recordings are sort of what I grew up on, but to be honest: before studying this music and learning about Ensemble Organum, graindelavoix and others I did indeed somehow believe that "Flemish Polyphony sounds really nice, but after one hour you tend to fall asleep", only these more forward-thinking ensembles showed me the exact opposite. "If we were to here 15th century singers, the results may strike us as ugly." makes about as much sense to me as "If we were to see the work of 15th century painters the results may strike us as ugly." Well... do they?

In an interview in 1994, Peter Philips (director of the Tallis Scholars) explained that his main goal was a beautiful sound. I personally prefer a different approach whose foremost goal is to touch the listener and that goes a considerable way beyond the written music. As an extreme example consider the singing of Amalia Rodriguez: it could be outright ugly (and many are offended for this reason), but it was definitely expressive and that made a great experience. Whether this would be appropriate for sacred music, is a different debate, and it must be said in defense to the Tallis Scholars that they sing exclusively sacred music (I heard them twice live, and never had the impression that they sang with a pious attitude, though, but that it was just a vanilla concert performance for them, not sure why I had this impression).

That opens up another aspect of this debate: How can faith be interpreted in a way that is so, as you said, "vanilla"? It was perhaps a little too subtle to work, but the opening track was a Palestrina Agnus Dei meant to contrast with the Corsican Agnus dei a minute later, and then there's the "hostia".

With "vanilla concert performance" I meant "Mucke". They seemed so unafffected both by the music and the religious context from which they had trasplanted it into a concert situation.

Dear Ido, thank's for the comment! You know, I've been thinking about doing an episode on Georgian polyphony for a while now. I've sort of grown up hearing it. My father is Georgian and I'm born in Tbilisi. I'll have to think of a good concept, but eventually I'll find a moment to cover it. I think it has more connections to western polyphony than it may seem at first.

me:mo By the way, If you are planning to do such an episode, I recommend the Iberi, Rustavi, and Anchisxanti choirs, and you can also find some sheet music, but unfortunately, it is hard to find these videos without knowing Georgian. But maybe you can use your father for this. :) My favorite piece is Romelni Qerubimta, by the way: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PqYUu7uGXjs.html

On a sidenote, I can also recommend the ensemble Mdzlevari!

Lieber Zualio, Vielen Dank für diesen Kommentar, dessen Aussagegehalt ich eigentlich nur beipflichten kann. Ich habe das auch so beobachtet und mich ähnlich darüber gewundert. Bei uns im Musikunterricht/Deutschunterricht ist es ziemlich genau so abgelaufen, wie du beschreibst. Ob ich die Frage allerdings zufriedenstellend beantworten kann? Ich denke, das ist eher etwas für wirkliche Historiker und Anthropologen, mir sind diese beiden Gebiete natürlich nur durch die Musik- und Kunstlinse bekannt, und durch diese sehen die Medici eigentlich echt nett aus. ;-) Ich denke, es spielen beim beschriebenen Phänomen sowohl unsere Erinnerungskultur (und deren Vergangenheit) eine Rolle, wie auch die tatsächlichen Verhältnisse damals. Ein Faktor wird wohl sein: Das was heute das frühneuzeitliche Kulturerbe des deutschsprachigen Raumes ausmacht hat sicherlich seine ganz großen Figuren - aber es gibt keinen »deutschen Dante«, der sich mit diesem messen könnte, keinen »deutschen Dowland«, keinen »deutschen Monteverdi«. Gleichzeitig brauchen die Italiener keinen "Schutz italiano", die Engländer keinen "The English Hoffmannswaldau" und die Franzosen keinen "Le Gerle François". Jemanden mit Stolz in jedes Schulbuch zu stecken, der im internationelen Vergleich nichtmal auf’s Treppchen kommt... widerspricht sich ja selbst. Dass die Lehrer sich dann auch noch selbst quasi darüber lustig machen ist einfach ein Bildungsproblem - dummerweise sind viele Schullehrer nur knapp gebildeter als der durchschnittliche Sachbearbeiter eben. Sonst würden sie ja was anderes machen. Wenn die Gelder geboten wären, könnte man sicherlich Musikunterricht von Musikologen geben lassen und Deutschunterricht von Germanisten. (Und so war das ja auch bei "gebildeten Leuten" früher...) Und hätte man gleichsam dem Herrn Holbein damals eine wunderbare Stelle in München geboten, hätte er sicherlich nicht seine berühmtesten Werke in England gelassen - ebenso Sir George Frederick Handel. Fällt das nicht im weitesten Sinne alles unter den Begriff "braindrain"?

Danke für die Antwort! Ich denke auch nicht, dass man nicht aus falschem Nationalstolz weniger bedeutende Autoren und Komponisten in das Curriculum drängen sollte. (Was aber de facto in Deutsch- und Musikunterricht getan wird, indem deutschsprachige Autoren und Musiker dominieren). Andererseits fand ich in deinen Videos sehr gut beschrieben, dass Alte Musik nicht nur Wiederholung von Vergangenem ist, sondern auch heute Räume für den Ausdruck von MusikerInnen eröffnet. Damit wird aber der Fortschrittsgedanke bereits relativiert: Auch Komponisten, die nicht die Speerspitze der Entwicklung waren, eröffnen möglicherweise neue Ausdrucksräume. Vielleicht muss man auch in Literatur und Musik von einer „Geschichte der großen Männer“ abkommen, obwohl das romantische Bild des einzelnen künstlerischen Genies verführerisch ist. Dann würden vielleicht auch mehr Menschen Traditionslinien an der Peripherie entdecken, die es lohnt zu erkunden. Die Schwierigkeit bleibt, dass es trotzdem noch bessere und schlechtere Komponisten gibt, wie du beim Vergleich von Marco Dall’Aquila und Spinacino demonstriert hast. Aber in der schulischen und populärwissenschaftlichen Musikgeschichte wird nicht nur unter den Komponisten einer Zeit der eine dem anderen bevorzugt. Große Zeitabschnitte und Regionen werden nicht behandelt. Eine Auswahl ist sicherlich unumgänglich. Es erstaunt mich aber immer wieder, wie sehr der Kanon sich immernoch so stark an den Bewertungen des 19. Jhds orientiert. Als Student der Ev. Theologie habe ich das Glück, in einem der wenigen Studiengänge mit humanistischem Bildungsideal eingeschrieben zu sein. Ich könnte in meiner Examensarbeit spätantike syrische Kirchenmusik, französische Philosophen oder religiöse Symbolik in Computerspielen behandeln. (Wenn ich einen Prof. dafür begeistern könnte und mich in die Fachliteratur einlesen wollte.) Ich habe bei KommilitonInnen in Lehramtsstudiengängen leider gemerkt, dass durch das im Vergleich kurze fachliche Studium weniger Raum für Ungewöhnlicheres ist. Reste vom Ideal sind aber auch dort zu finden: Derzeit müssen angehende Deutschlehrer Mittelhochdeutsch lernen, ohne Zeit, Raum und Motivation für Lektüre mittelhochdeutscher Werke. Es scheint mir nichts Halbes und nichts Ganzes zu sein. Der derzeitige Ruf nach mehr "Praxis" wird aber die Ausbildung eher auf den derzeitigen Lehrplan hin orientieren, anstatt Bildung auch außerhalb von Lehrplanthemen zu fördern. Also eher mehr Weißbrot statt Vollkorn.

Haha, the history of bread is indeed fascinating, and I was of course over-generalizing there. But bread as something that is not only nourishing, cultural, the origin of cilization itself, but also a matter of taste and a topic to get very invested in (we German's would indeed know!) does seem to work quite well as an analogy to singing and music. ;-) Thanks for watching and this comment! Best wishes, Lukas

In a similar vein, I have always been perplexed that in English we describe something cheap or of low quality as being “cheesy”. Cheese is of course, like bread (including white bread!) one of the great achievements of human culture. I think I will have a cheese sandwich.

Right! Another curious case like that: In German the phrase for "I couldn't care less." is: "Das ist mir Wurst." - literally: "That's sausage to me." The irony here is that sausages are the exact opposite of irrelevant to us Germans. Perhaps the correct interpretation is that, for us, the epitome of égalité is the consistency of a sausage, which of course can only apply to very certain variants like the Frankfurter (Weener) for example. Btw did you know that a Bavarian term for thin and long sausages is "Saiterl", literally meaning "thin Strings", as they are of course stuffed guts...

Really like your explanation for it! This saying has always confused me, especially given the saying "Jetzt geht's um die Wurst" (now it is about the sausage) to signify that now the stakes are on.

Kind of funny since white bread in previous centuries were considered something only reserved for the rich.

Make Early Music Grain Again #MEGA

;-)