alpha 261
2016
ALFONSO X el SABIO (1221-1284)
Cantigas de Santa Maria
1. Santa Maria, strella do dia [2:13]
CSM 100
GUILLAUME de MACHAUT (c. 1300-1377)
Messe de Notre-Dame (1360-1365). Messe à quatre voix
2. Kyrie [4:54]
IGOR STRAVINSKY (c. 1882-1971)
Messe (1948). Messe pour chœur mixte et double quintette à vents
3. Kyrie [3:00]
4. Gloria [3:56]
5. Gloria [5:51]
6. Credo [4:12]
7. Sanctus [4:37]
8. Sanctus [3:47]
9. Agnus [3:43]
10. Ite missa est [2:57]
11. Quenas sas figuras da Virgen partir [2:06]
CSM 76
MAURICE OHANA (1913-1992)
Cantigas (1954), pour solistes, chœur mixte et orchestre
12. Cantiga de los Reyes Magos [5:53]
13. Quen na Virgen groriosa [3:38]
CSM 256
14. Cantiga del Destierro [7:11]
15. Tod aquel que pola Virgen [1:50]
CSM 212
16. Cantiga de Vela [3:50]
17. Cantiga del Azahar [5:32]
18. Rosa das rosas [4:00]
CSM 10
19. Cantiga de la Noche Santa [3:26]
20. Santa Maria, strela do dia [1:49]
CSM 100
21. Cantiga del Nacimiento [3:50]
CLAIRE LEFILLIÂTRE — SOPRANO
ANNA REINHOLD — MEZZO-SOPRANO
FRANCISCO MANALICH — TÉNOR
LISANDRO ABADIE — BARYTON-BASSE
LA TEMPÊTE
SIMON-PIERRE BESTION DIRECTION
· ANNABELLE BAYET, ELLEN GIACONE, ANAËL BEN SOUSSAN, HÉLÈNE RICHER, EVELYN VERGARA,
ALICE KAMENEZKY3 & 4, MARION THOMAS, CÉCILE DUROUSSAUD — SOPRANOS
· CÉLIA STROOM, LAURA MALVAROSA, WILLIAM SHELTON5, EUGÉNIE DE MEY2, 3, 4, 6 & 8,
LAURE ILEF,
MATHILDE GATOUILLAT — ALTOS
· RICHARD GOLIAN, SAMUEL ROUFFY, OLIVIER RAULT, JOËL ROESSEL, HUGO TRANCHANT,
RENE RAMOS-PREMIER1, 2, 4 & 7 — TÉNORS
· EUDES PEYRE, NICOLAS JOSSERAND, FLORENT MARTIN1 & 4, ARTHUR CADY,
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BRIZARD4 & 5 — BASSES
· LAURA DUTHUILLÉ, NATHALIE PETIBON — HAUTBOIS & HAUTBOIS D’AMOUR ANCIENS
· CHRISTOPHER PALAMETA — TAILLE DE HAUTBOIS ANCIEN
· BOGDAN SYDORENKO — CLARINETTES
· KRZYSZTOF LEWANDOWSKI, LUCILE TESSIER — BASSONS ANCIENS, CERVELAS, CHALEMIE
· ADRIEN MABIRE, BENOÎT TAINTURIER — CORNETS À BOUQUINS ET CORNETS MUETS
· LAURENT MADEUF, ALEXIS LAHENS — SACQUEBOUTES TÉNORS
· ABEL ROHRBACH — SACQUEBOUTE BASSE
· MICHÈLE CLAUDE, GUY-LOUP BOISNEAU, WILLIAM MÈGE — PERCUSSIONS
· JONAS ATLAN — PIANO
SOLISTE: 1 KYRIE – 2 GLORIA – 3 SANCTUS – 4 ITE MISSA EST (MACHAUT)
5 QUEN NA VIRGEN GRORIOSA – 6 ROSA DAS ROSAS – 7 CANTIGA DEL NACIMIENTO
8 INTONATIONS DU PLAIN-CHANT GRÉGORIEN
RECORDED FROM 6 TO 9 MARCH 2016 AT ÉGLISE NOTRE DAME DU LIBAN (PARIS)
KEN YOSHIDA / RECORDING PRODUCER
FRÉDÉRIC BRIANT / SOUND ENGINEER & MIXING
NICOLAS DAVID / MASTERING
JOHN THORNLEY / ENGLISH TRANSLATION
SILVIA BERUTTI-RONELT / GERMAN TRANSLATION
LISANDRO ABADIE / FRENCH TRANSLATION (CANTIGAS DE SANTA MARIA & MAURICE OHANA’s CANTIGAS)
OR KATZ / COVER DESIGN
VALÉRIE LAGARDE & ALINE LUGAND-GRIS SOURIS / DESIGN & ARTWORK
HUBERT CALDAGUÈS / PHOTOS
CANTIGAS DE MAURICE OHANA © 1975 BY GÉRARD BILLAUDOT ÉDITEUR SA
ALPHA CLASSICS
DIDIER MARTIN / DIRECTOR
LOUISE BUREL / PRODUCTION
AMÉLIE BOCCON-GIBOD / EDITORIAL COORDINATOR
La Tempête est acompagnée , depuis 2013, par la Fondation
Orange et depuis 2015 par Mécénat Musical
Société Générale.
Elle reçoit également le soutien du ministère de
la culture (Drac Nouvele-Aquitaine ), de la région
Nouvele-Aquitaine , du département de la Corèze et de la
vile de Brive-la-Gailarde.
La Compagnie est en résidence au Colège des Bernardins
à Paris. Elle est membre de la fédération des
ensembles vocaux et instrumentau x spécialisés (Fevis).
ALPHA 261 ℗: LA TEMPÊTE & ALPHA CLASSICS / OUTHERE MUSIC FRANCE 2016
© ALPHA CLASSICS / OUTHERE MUSIC FRANCE 2016
‘My vocal writing is an attempt to liberate the voice, in the sense of a reunion with
its primitive state, as embodied in the music of Africa, flamenco song, and certain
kinds of music from Central Europe. […] In my opinion the voice holds the key to
everything that is going to be happening in music right now, because it can access
all the areas of sound – and it is sound that leads us on to new musical adventures.’
‘I LIKE THE IDEA OF DISORIENTATING THE LISTENER
Interview by Claire Boisteau, 23 May 2016
* The Tempest, 2015, Alpha 208
‘King Alfonso the Wise was a warrior, a legislator, a poet and a musician (…) He
undertook an enormous amount of work, not only of compilation, but of composition:
his works are a kind of hymn, with essentially Marian poetic texts. (…) They are
influenced by the troubadors, the trouvères, and Gregorian chant, (…) but there are
also some really uncanny coincidental resemblances with composers such as Bartók,
I would go still further and say with the melodies of contemporary songwriters such
as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.’
‘The Cantigas occupy such a crucial position in my work that it is difficult for me to
talk about them: they touch so closely on secrets that are buried, or that I don’t wish
to divulge.’
Maurice Ohana1
1 Édith Canat de Chizy, François Porcile: Maurice Ohana, Fayard, 2005
BETWEEN DIFFERENT HISTORICAL PERIODS’
SIMON-PIERRE BESTION
This programme interweaves the polyphony of Machaut with the poetry of the Spanish cantigas and
the century of Stravinsky and Ohana. What is the underlying structure of this tangled web?
SIMON-PIERRE BESTION: Medieval music is the original inspiration of this programme. It influenced Stravinsky and
Ohana: the former wrote his Mass after discovering that of Machaut; as for Ohana, his Cantigas de Santa Maria
make reference to those of Alfonso the Wise, to popular song, and to Spanish processions in honour of the
Virgin Mary. I came across the Mass of Machaut in the interpretation by Marcel Pérès, and I was very struck
by the inspiration he takes from the performance practice of popular music. I realized that we could reconcile
this ancestral vocal tradition with the Spanish manuscript sources. You can take extraordinary liberties with
this Mass – it’s so modern, after all – and
that’s how we arrived at our interpretation, a bit more
‘beefy’ and
rather Mediterranean. Machaut, Stravinsky, Ohana – they all wrote music that can be quite complex, even
austere. I felt the necessity of weaving a connective thread between them, right to the core of their music, in
order to make it easier to listen to: that is achieved through the simplicity of the melodies, the folk rhythms of
the cantigas. They invite us to return to the sources of song. From then on, it’s just a question of knowing how
to match the tonalities with the spirit of the cantigas to make a sequence that sounds natural. I like the idea of
disorientating the listener between different historical periods, so that he can no longer differentiate the ancient
from the modern. The important thing is to return to the essence of the things. The roots, the forces to which
this recording leads us – they may remain obscure, but they are valid, and profound.
Did you have it mind to stage an imaginary sacred ou folk ceremony?
S.-P. B. The programme consists of reinvented liturgy, based on the Catholic rite, but going beyond it. It is a
newly conceived ritual that addresses gut feelings, not just an echo of Catholicism.
One scenario was fixed from the beginning. Unlike our previous recording,* which followed a dramatic storyline,
this CD is based on the conceptualization of an intensely meditative inner ritual moving towards a complete
externalization – as in certain African rituals. In this recording, it corresponds to the movement from Latin to
Spanish, and to the progression towards vivid colours and unusual, quasi non-European sonorities.
Does such a programme demand a specific technique from the singers?
S.-P. B. I wanted to match the soloists to particular colours that give a characteristic tone to their register. I
chose singers familiar with early music, powerful, direct voices, using little vibrato, voices that could also sing
Stravinsky and Ohana. This unique choice of personnel helps to give further unity to the programme, and to
erase the temporal landmarks.
For the orchestra, I relied on instrumentalists close to early music traditions, with an excellent understanding
of phrasing, and with musical intelligence – I like that a lot. They are used to working on scores from earlier
historical periods, where little is notated and so one has to make one’s own of the music, respectfully, but with
inventiveness. We applied the same approach to Stravinsky. As for Ohana, we are entirely in accord with the
spirit of freedom with which he allowed interpreters to make their own of his works.
The music of Machaut demands a way of singing that is full-on and open – like the polyphonic singing of
Corsica, the Basque country, or Georgia. It’s quite a guttural kind of singing. The chorus has had to work on a
different basis to that of its normal lyrical technique. I don’t like voices that are too smooth, hence we have a
kind of heterogeneity in the chorus: for me that’s a positive quality, a way of taking on vocal colours, a rich and
warm veneer of sound.
For the recording, did you play around with the sound space?
S.-P. B. The orchestra was arranged in consorts for the early repertoire, and in mixed desks for the Ohana and
Stravinsky. The chorus was arranged as a surrounding circle, in a single row, so it was both a single body as
well as a chorus of soloists. I like to recreate the experience I had myself as a young singer, of being in
the middle of an orchestra and feeling the sound physically. Our whole attitude is determined by that feeling
of being immersed – it gives a dimension that is both spellbinding and evanescent. Spatialization is of great
importance, of course, and new technology will certainly bring us further possibilities.
Did this programme arise as a natural extension of your Shakespearian CD*?
S.-P. B. Actually we thought up this concert before the Shakespeare programme, but we gave ourselves the
necessary time to research further into the sonic dimension. The choice of instruments in the Machaut reflects
the bias towards an interpretation that is more ‘neo-classical’ than historical. The aim is to lead the listener
towards ancient sound colours, rather than to historically authentic instruments. I have also taken the liberty
of assigning certain passages either to the whole choir, or to the bass voices alone, while adding instruments
and percussion, building up a continually renwed sonic progression. With the cantigas, I’ve taken the risk of
harmonising some of them in a ‘medieval’ style, but also using richer harmonies to converge with the style of
Ohana and his own Cantigas, playing in this way with historical time. It has all been developed with a method
rather like that of a painter, in a process of continual enhancement. For the Ohana, I asked Michèle Claude, who
mainly plays early and traditional percussion instruments, to combine improvisation with some sections I had
rewritten myself. The result is something quite folky and lively.
The more I develop in music, the more I have an urge to take liberties, supported by the knowledge I’ve been
able to acquire in the course of my studies. Formal learning is essential, but it can mislead you into adopting
many constraints and rules. So how about pushing back the barriers of dogma just a little? That is my way of
creating: I love this experimental aspect, with its risk-taking, and the idea of a journey. One has to be daring,
ask questions, take a stand and defend it responsibly. For me, that is the whole point of being an artist.