Polyphony

The four members of New York Polyphony here present a programme which explores the themes of grief, loss and mortality. Apart from the work by Jackson Hill on Guillaume de Machaut’s famous 14th century rondeau Ma fin… and two examples of plainsong, all works included on this disc, the ensemble’s first on BIS, were composed by masters of the Franco-Flemish school of polyphony from the first half of the 16th century. Most of this music was partly used liturgically: the two Gregorian chants Libera me and In paradisum both form part of the Roman Catholic burial service.

Taking its title from a poem by the sixteenth-century Jesuit martyr Robert Southwell, Times go by Turns comprises three masses composed during a period when the conditions for English Catholics – and Catholic composers – underwent radical change. Active at a time – the 15th century – when the Catholic Church flourished in England, John Plummer’s death roughly coincided with the ascension of the Tudors, a dynasty that would irreversibly alter religious traditions. As a consequence, the bulk of Plummer’s music was destroyed during the Reformation, the remainder surviving almost exclusively in sources from the continent. Born a century later than Plummer, Tallis witnessed the separation of England from the Catholic Church and his Mass for Four Voices displays a simple lyricism and economic use of polyphony which may well have been driven by liturgical necessity. Such constraints had grown even stronger by the end of the century, when his student and colleague William Byrd composed his own four-part Mass, intended for clandestine worship at a time when dissidents were dealt with by cruel means.

2013 sees the centenary of Britten’s birth and a wide-ranging programme of concerts, operas and events, including performances of his choral music. This recording is the perfect introduction to this repertoire. Included on this Gramophone Award-winning recording is the last choral work for professionals which Britten was to complete—Sacred and Profane—a collection of eight medieval lyrics for voices in five parts (SSATB). Also included is the Chorale after an old French Carol whose text is by W H Auden (a close friend of Britten’s). The Chorale’s text was part of an unachieved Christmas Oratorio on which Britten and Auden intended to collaborate.

Arvo Part - Choral Works - Stephen Layton, Polyphony (2014) {Hyperion - CDA68056}
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© 2014 Hyperion Records | CDA68056
Classical / Avant-Garde / Choral / Chamber Music / Modern Composition

Stephen Layton and Polyphony have a long and fruitful relationship with the music of Arvo Pärt. Their recording of Triodion and other choral works (CDA67375) won a Gramophone Award and became a cult classic. The extraordinary purity of Polyphony’s singing is the perfect vehicle for music of such clean, elemental simplicity, such cathartic calm. This third Pärt album from Stephen Layton and Polyphony reaches right back, intriguingly, to the composer’s youthful modernist phase and spans nearly five decades—from 1963 to 2012—in the process. As with the album Triodion, it reflects an increasingly broad spread of languages and sources in Pärt’s chosen texts. Latin, German and English are joined here by Church Slavonic and Spanish. A range of biblical texts are set alongside ancient prayers.