In terra aliena
Música Temprana/Adrián Rodríguez Van der Spoel
rec. 2024, Pieterskerk, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Texts and translations included
Reviewed as a 16 bit/44 kHz download
Cobra Records COBRA0095 [64]
The ensemble Música Temprana focuses on music from the Spanish-speaking world, including the New World. In 2023, at the Festival Early Music Utrecht, they performed a programme with pieces most of which were taken from the Cancionero de Palacio, one of the main sources of Spanish secular music from the late 15th and early 16th centuries. That is also the source from which a number of works on the disc under review are taken, alongside comparable songbooks. However, the subject of the programme at the festival was different from the one to which the present recording is devoted.
That brings us to another interesting connection. In 2024, members of the ensemble were artists in residence at the Utrecht Festival, and one of its concerts consisted of settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah from the New World. In the programme of the present disc, we also find a Lamentation, attributed to Juan de Anchieta (for reasons unknown to me called Johannes de Anxieta here). This can be explained from what Adrián Rodríguez Van der Spoel writes in his liner notes.
“The expression “in terra aliena”, which occurs so frequently in Spanish poetry after 1500, refers to the psalm Super Flumina Babylonis (Psalm 137 – By the Rivers of Babylon). The psalm is a collective lamentation by the Jews, centring on the memory of Zion and the longing for Jerusalem, while they were living as exiles, captives of Babylonia.” He then argues that this idea of having to live on foreign soil was something people in Spain, at the time these songbooks were put together, could also experience. It was the start of a time of colonisation of the New World, which made people travel to foreign lands from which they might never return. At the same time, the peaceful coexistence of Christians, Jews and Muslims came to an end. The latter left the country for North Africa, the Jews had the choice to convert or to leave as well; many opted for the latter, and went into exile. “Given all this, we can say that there were enough reasons for poetry, and consequently song, to introduce a new leitmotif, namely ‘in foreign territory’.” It is easy to connect this subject to our own time too; many people have to live on foreign soil, as they have been forced to leave their own land and often also their loved ones because of poverty, natural disasters or persecution.
This idea has resulted in a programme which is not exactly sparkling with joy. It is very different from what is often considered ‘typically Spanish’, also due to the often one-sided picture of programmes performed at concerts and recordings. This is a different side of Spanish musical culture and literature. Many pieces are outright sad, others melancholic, but always of considerable depth and expression.
The opening piece, Arvoles lloran por lluvias, is an example of the large repertoire of Sephardic music – the music of Jews driven away from their home soil. “The trees weep for rain, the mountains for wind. That is how my eyes cry for you, my love, my dear love. / And once more, I say: what is to become of me? In strange lands, I will meet my death. / Pale you are, pale your clothes, pale your little face. And pale flowers fall from your beauty.” The music fits the words perfectly, and this piece sets the tone for the entire programme.
Some texts are very explicit. One of these is Ay de mi, qu’en tierra ajena, set by an anonymous composer: “Woe is me: I am joyless in a strange land. When will I see my own country once more?” The cause of the protagonist’s sadness is being separated from his love. In Triste está la gentil dama by Antonio de Contreras, the clue comes at the end: “Alas! For you, my little son, I die of sorrow for you leave to go to foreign lands, strange and far-away lands.” That may well refer to someone moving to the New World, just like the anonymous Parto triste y saludoso: “I leave, sad and filled with longing, my eyes sorrowful, my soul wishes for death. You stayed behind, my hope, my future. I leave, with sad thoughts, my soul joyless, my heart restless.”
¡Oh castillo de Montanges!, another anonymous piece, is about another kind of separation: that between a son who is in prison and his mother. Jail is also a kind of foreign land. Soledad tengo de ti is an expression of a feeling that many people living in foreign lands may know all too well: homesickness. “I’m homesick for you, land of my birth, land of my birth. If it is my fate to die, bury me under a stone, so that my body is not laid to rest in foreign soil. Take me to a height, from where I can see the land of my birth.”
Not every text is easy to understand. Rodríguez Van der Spoel writes: “One of the greatest qualities of late medieval Spanish poetry is the ability to say something without saying it. How evocative are the following lines: ‘I saw the boats, mother, I saw them and they did not please me’. Without explaining much about which ships they are and which people are washing the blouses in the water” (the latter referring to later parts of the text of Vi los barcos, madre). Moreover, “‘[On] foreign ground’ is often a metaphor for a general apathy, evoked by a love that is not reciprocated, that sees turning its back on the world as the only solution.” It may have helped if there had been some comment on or explanation of the texts. However, maybe it is deliberately left to the imagination of the listener to interpret them or give them a twist of his own. Something comparable to the example just mentioned is the anonymous Ay, luna que reluzes: “Oh, moon that shines, light my way all night. Oh, most beautiful moon, light my way in the mountains. Wherever I may go, light my way all night.” That is not very specific, but suggests that here we have someone leaving home. In the case of Hermitaño quiero ser by Juan del Encina, I find it hard to see a clue to its meaning.
The songbooks from which most pieces are taken, are not unknown; in fact, they were already used as sources for programmes and recordings in the early days of the revival of early music. They were considered typically Spanish, and performed in what was thought to be a typically Spanish style. Interestingly, during the 2024 Festival Early Music I heard a concert by the ensemble De Tempera Velha, which was also devoted to the repertoire from the songbooks. The ensemble aims at revising that view, emphasising that these songs are part of a tradition which developed across Europe, by comparing them with what was written elsewhere. That was a most instructive concert. Música Temprana also approaches these songs differently: whereas for a long time they were often performed with a battery of instruments, including loud wind instruments (and it still happens), Rodríguez Van der Spoel emphasizes that these songs were intended for performance in aristocratic circles, at courts, in rather intimate surroundings. In the concert at the Utrecht Festival of 2023 Música Temprana included only a few instruments, and it does so here as well.
Obviously the instruments used here – recorder, vihuela de mano, vihuela de arco, harp, guitar – perfectly fit the texts and the nature of the music. The texts are always clearly intelligible, and the connection between text and music comes off perfectly; the listener is not distracted by the volume of the instruments and the brilliant playing of them. This repertoire is no mere entertainment; it requires attentive listening. If one listens to this disc with attention, one is richly rewarded. Each piece is of excellent quality, many have a melodiousness which may listeners invite to sing along. If I have to mention a highlight, it may be Triste está la gentil dama by Contreras, which is just wonderful, and is given such a moving performance by Luciano Cueto. Aleph. Quomodo obscuratum est aurum, a setting of a part of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, is moving as well, but in a very different way. It is set for low voices which makes it all the more incisive. I have already mentioned the Sephardic song which opens the programme; no less expressive is Paséisme’orallá, serrana by Pedro de Escobar, which closes it.
Música Temprana always has great singers in its ranks, and that is no different this time. The singing is just exquisite and so much to the point in each piece. The instrumentalists do a great job here as well; their subtle and effective playing greatly contributes to the impact of these performances. They can be admired on their own in some instrumental items.
As one may understand, this disc is something special, because of its subject, the music chosen to illustrate it, and the way it is performed. Don’t miss it!
Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen
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Contents
anon
Arvoles lloran por lluvias (arr Adrián Rodríguez Van der Spoel)
Antonio de Contreras (c1460-after 1516)
Qué mayor desventura
anon
¡Ay, luna que reluzes!
Vi los barcos, madre
¿Cómo puedo yo vivir?
Parto triste y saludoso
¡Ay, de mi, qu’en tierra agena!
Juan de Anxieta (c1462-c1523) (attr)
Aleph. Quomodo obscuratum est aurum
Antonio de Contreras
Triste está la gentil dama
anon
No soy yo quien veis vivir
O castillo de Montanges
Juan del Encina (1469-1529)
Hermitaño quiero ser
anon
Acabarseam mis plazeres
Francisco de Peñalosa (c1470-1528)
A tierras agenas
anon
Soledad tengo de ti
Pedro de Escobar (c1465-after 1535)
Paséisme’orallá, serrana
