Rating = Performance 10/ Sound 10
It's been 10 years--1993's On Yoolis Night--since we heard this
ensemble
sing real Christmas carols--in English, even. Fans of this
extraordinary
quartet will be pleasantly surprised with this choice of
repertoire--and
with the beautiful accompaniments by Andrew Lawrence-King and his
harps.
The majority of the selections are traditional English, Irish,
Scottish,
Welsh, and even Cornish songs, but we're also treated to world-premiere
recordings of pieces by Peter Maxwell Davies (A Calendar of Kings) and
Geoffrey Burgon (A god, and yet a man?). Then there's a luminous
all-female
rendition of John Tavener's justly popular The Lamb (his first success,
a sincere and simple work unencumbered by later self-conscious
religious
agendas) and the concluding A New Year Carol, where Benjamin Britten's
original arpeggiated piano accompaniment lends itself perfectly to this
setting where the unison voices are supported by Lawrence-King's
Baroque
harp.
Anonymous 4's Johanna Maria Rose shows that she knows a thing or two about arranging for the voices she's been singing with for the past couple of decades, contributing her own very pleasing takes on the carols The holly and the ivy, Grene growith the holy, and I saw three ships. Highlights are many, but include Peter Maxwell Davies' uniquely affecting A Calendar of Kings, basically a fanciful harmonic journey through the wondrous imagery of George Mackay Brown's poem--a mystical trip not through Eastern landscapes but rather through the poet's own Orkney Islands--that's full of wild and wonderful colors and startling effects that show off Anonymous 4's rarely heard ontemporary-music chops. Richard Rodney Bennett's setting of Balulalow is a gem, as are Marsha Genensky's solo interpretation of Good people all, accompanied by Lawrence-King's vibrant, bell-like Irish harp, and the irresistibly "catchy" Can wassel (Wassail Song).
The disc is enhanced by a well-planned programming order
that ensures
transitions from track to track are smooth and sensitive to keys and to
the listener's need both for tonal continuity and musical variety. For
some reason, the sound on the latter part of the disc is more resonant
and present than on the opening tracks--a situation that takes about
two
seconds to adjust to. It need not be said that Anonymous 4 fans will
want
this without delay. And if it's possible that there are listeners new
to
this group, here's an easy way to get to know its matchless sound and
enduring,
engaging personality.
--David Vernier, classicstoday.com
"If it's the Christmas spirit you're after, try the new
selection of
Celtic and British songs and carols "Wolcum Yule," by the vocal quartet
Anonymous 4, with harpist Andrew Lawrence-King...alluring."
- Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times Magazine, November 9, 2003
"The Davies song, 'A Calendar of Kings,' sets a George
Mackay Brown
poem concerning the journey of the three Magi from the East to the
scene
of Christ's nativity; it is spare in affect, yet vividly devotional,
and
will be remembered long after its six minutes are up. Britten's A New
Year
Carol, which concludes the recital, is so consolingly beautiful that
you
will be willing (just) to let the CD finish. Whether you prefer your
joy
in abstract or rollicking settings, there is much for you to enjoy..
Unaccompanied,
and with Lawrence-King... the four women of Anonymous 4 have never
sounded
as lovely. Working at Skywalker Sound, producer Robina Young and
engineer
Brad Michel have created an uncannily natural space in which the
overtones
float magically away as if they were sounding in response to the
season."
- Laurence Vittes, Audiophile Audition - November 2003
By the time doors of St. Mark's Church opened
Friday evening, the line of
fans eager to hear the farewell concert by Anonymous 4 stretched more
than half a block and filled Locust Street with the high murmur of
anticipation that in an earlier time might have prefaced a Horowitz
concert. For 17 years, these four - Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer,
Jacqueline Horner and Johanna Maria Rose - have moved knowingly between
music from medieval sources to the tangiest contemporary pieces,
applying their scholarship, clear, unvibrated voices, and uncanny
intonation to the task of reimagining the fascination of ensemble
singing. Yet just at the apogee of their long flight, they are ending
it all after this season to work on individual projects.
Their
program, with harpist Andrew Lawrence-King, was about Christmas and
winter rituals. The songs, in Welsh, Celtic and English old and new,
conveyed wonder and jubilation at the Christmas story. Contemporary
carols, by Peter Maxwell Davies, Richard Rodney Bennett, John Taverner
and Benjamin Britten, displayed some of the wonder of writing for such
dazzling singing musicians. Davies' "A Calendar of Kings," composed for
this group, challenged them with some minor seconds that first
underlined their exacting vocal placement, then led them through
elaborate counterpoint and shifting tempos to complete an aural history
of the travels of the Magi. Juxtaposing the old and the new, the
ensemble pointed to the orderly march of styles and sometimes
similarity of sound that have characterized song through the ages. A
song by Henry 8th may sound as innovative as Taverner's "The Lamb." And
Britten's "A New Year Carol" spoke as simply as songs from 300 years
earlier. None of the singing sounded self-praising; all of it was
inventive but respectful. The glassy intervals, the finely placed vocal
lines, and the rhythmic spring combined to explain why their program
had drawn such a crowd. Within the subtly graded dynamic levels in
which they work, these singers touched deep emotional states and vivid
musical colors. Lawrence-King played three distinctive harps, each
providing a different color to the singing. He had some solo moments,
too. In "The Reel of Tullochgorum" and "On a Cold Winter's Day," an
Irish air, he revealed expressive ranges and colors far beyond what
seem possible in plucked strings in a single key. The program was so
carefully chosen and presented, it seemed an encore might break the
intensity of the experience. But after the audience stood to cheer,
they performed "Stille Nacht." In this familiar piece, they scrubbed
away a couple of hundred years of sentimentality to remind us that it
is a lilting 6/8 tune full of Austrian folksong. With that, the five
musicians left. It was a dignified and oh-so-musical farewell.
Many of the symbols and practices of the Celtic midwinter celebration known as Yule (probably several thousand years older than the festival of Christmas) have come down to us in a curious amalgamation of mythologies, pagan and Christian. Yule marks the time of the winter solstice, around 21 December - the longest and darkest night of the year, when the coming of spring seems a faint hope. To fortify that hope, the ancient Celts, who dwelt throughout Britain, held a celebration of lights, to give power to the returning sun. They brought evergreens into their homes to symbolize life at the time when most of nature seemed dead and dark, and they gave and received gifts to represent wisdom gained from looking inward during the long winter nights. These symbols, and many other elements of ancient pagan ceremonies, were absorbed into the early Christian festivals, blending into a multi-layered expression of the universal cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
The traditional music associated with the midwinter festival is also interwoven with threads of pre-Christian ritual and folk-customs. The concerns of an ancient people dependent upon the whims of nature for food and shelter are expressed not only in imagery of the natural world, but even in the form of the songs themselves. The word “carol” (from Old French “carole”) originally meant a dance performed in a circle, the dancers also singing a verse with a recurring refrain. This was probably derived from ancient ritual dances with call-and-response chanting, used at magical ceremonies throughout the cycle of the year. Even by the Middle Ages, the carol was not limited to the winter season; only much later did the term take on its present meaning of a song for the Christmas season.
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, collectors began to rescue from obscurity many folk tunes, songs and carols. In Edinburgh, poet Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) collected and published Scottish tunes, and Edward Bunting (1773–1843), a classically-trained musician in Belfast, produced three volumes of Irish airs. Crucial figures in the folk song revival were Davies Gilbert (1767–1839) and William Sandys (1792–1874), both gentleman scholars from Cornwall, an area of Britain that had remained comparatively isolated until the shift from an agricultural society to an industrial one, and whose folk customs and songs remained more intact than in other areas of the country. Although the carols published by Gilbert and Sandys were relatively few in number, these collections were seminal because they were the first to include both tunes and words. Some of our best-loved Christmas carols were preserved through their efforts, and their momentum was carried forward by the early twentieth-century collectors of folk song, Cecil Sharp (1859–1924) and Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), as well as later collectors working throughout the British Isles.
For this program, we have interwoven traditional Christmas songs with contemporary carols (ranging from the early twentieth century to the beginning of the twenty-first: a newly commissioned work by Peter Maxwell Davies), showing that the need never dies to express the most basic human fears and joys, and to keep that expression always fresh with the turning of each year.
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Discography:
  Three Decades of Anonymous 4 1865 Marie et Marion love fail The Drop That Contained the Sea Secret Voices
The Cherry Tree Four Centuries of Chant Gloryland Noel The Origin of Fire American Angels
Wolcum Yule Darkness into Light la bele marie The Second Circle 1000: A Mass for the End of Time Legends of St. Nicholas
A Lammas Ladymass 11,000 Virgins Christmas Music from Medieval Hungary Miracles of Sant'Iago The Lily & The Lamb Love's Illusion
On Yoolis Night An English Ladymass Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light A Portrait of Anonymous 4
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