John Potter,

British composer Ambrose Field is primarily known for his work in electronic music, much of it using the sounds of the natural world and of industrial and post-industrial society to create gritty and audacious musique concrète soundscapes. On this album, he takes fragments of vocal music by the great fifteenth century Flemish composer Guillaume Dufay and weaves them into allusive electronic landscapes of considerable subtlety.

John Potter - Secret History - Josquin / Victoria (2017) {ECM New Series 2119}
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© 2017 ECM Records | ECM New Series 2119 | 4811463
Classical / Medieval / Vocal Music / Chamber Music

Tomas Luis de Victoria and Josquin Desprez were not contemporaries, they lived and worked in different countries, and perhaps shared little in terms of abstract compositional style. Yet throughout Europe, generations of musicians recognized them as kindred spirits, and tablature versions of their masses and motets circulated amongst lutenists. For John Potter, this is “the secret life of the music – in historical terms its real life.” In this characteristically creative project Potter - joined by Trio Mediaeval singer Anna Maria Friman and three outstanding vihuela players - explores “what happens to music after it is composed.”

What is, or are, conductus? The body of anonymous medieval songs, usually sacred but not liturgical and mostly forgotten, flowered in France in the mid-13th century around the time of the Notre Dame school. This new Hyperion disc, the first of three recordings, is part of a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the University of Southampton which should reawaken interest in this beguiling repertory. The poems are about life, death, salvation and, naturally, the frail virtues of women. ("He who strives to keep and lock in a roving young woman/Is washing a brick.") Three tenors John Potter, Christopher O'Gorman and Rogers Covey-Crump deliver these explorations with unerring skill and conviction.

For purists, Gavin Bryars has raised issues of appropriation in his contemporary adaptations of fourteenth century Cortonese laude, but it is sometimes difficult to know how much of the material on Oi Me Lasso he has quoted and how much he has elaborated. In their original form, these sacred songs were written for unaccompanied soprano voice; one can be sure that the drones, passing dissonances, and instrumental parts are Bryars' inventions, and that he has reshaped the pure vocal lines to his own expressive needs.

The Dowland Project, established by ECM's Manfred Eicher, would not please musical purists; in this installment, Romaria, it brings together an assortment of old and new instruments, including violin, viola, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, tenor and bass recorders, Baroque guitar, and vihuela, performing music spanning nearly a millennium, most of it written before most of these instruments had been developed. The producer and performers may have deliberately chosen to ignore the principle of authentic performance practice, duplicating as closely as possible the sound of the music at the time it was created, but they are principled in the aesthetic decisions they have made.

The worlds of the crossover album and of the ECM music label don't overlap much, but this is a crossover album unlike any other released up to this time. For one thing, it deals with the Renaissance lute song, not a form in which new pieces have been written often. And for another, the vocal middle ground between Renaissance vocal styles and the rock background of the contemporary composers is unique. What is here are Renaissance lute songs from England and Spain, plus songs by John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Tony Banks of Genesis, and, at the end, Sting, expanding on his Dowland album of a decade ago.

British multireed player John Surman has enjoyed a long career, making significant marks in free jazz, modal, and fusion, and also developing his own distinctive blend of folk and jazz elements. His ability to bridge styles has even extended to 1999's treatment of Renaissance-era composer John Dowland's songs, In Darkness Let Me Dwell with the Hilliard Ensemble's John Potter. Coruscating is another unusual venture, with Surman and regular associate bassist Chris Laurence improvising on eight of Surman's compositions with the string quartet Trans4mation. There's a seamless beauty here, composition and improvisation becoming one. Beginning with the baroque clarity of melody on "At Dusk," Coruscating develops often dark, looming textures. While Surman has made his baritone fly, here he emphasizes intense lyricism, whether with a true, full-bodied, baritone sound or a light upper register. "Stone Flower" is dedicated to the great Ellington baritonist Harry Carney, and Surman's breathy, overtone-rich sound invokes Carney's own recordings with strings.