On paper, tonight’s Prom promised much. Alessandro Striggio’s mass, Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno for 40 and 60 voices doesn’t get frequent performances, and conductor Hervé Niquet’s Le Concert Spirituel is one of the leading French early music ensembles. Their programme interspersed sections of the mass with works by Benevolo, Corteccia, Massenzio and Palestrina. With 40 singers and 15 or so players, the scene was set for an evening of fine polychoral Renaissance music.
A bell striking signalled the performers’ entrance, with an anonymous plainchant Beata viscera Marie virginis over droning sackbuts. They processed to form a circle around conductor Niquet, terraced to two or three levels. But herein lay the problem for the audience. For the vast majority, the view was of the circle’s rear, with many of the musicians at the circle’s inside lower level invisible. More importantly, this also meant that some lower voices at the top of the outside tier were much more audible than the lighter higher voices, hidden in the inner circle. Those seated in the higher choir stalls probably had a better view, and possibly improved audio experience, but for the majority the experience was aurally and visually disappointing.
Listening to the radio broadcast on demand offers a completely different experience, however. The balance is immediately improved, and suddenly the lighter upper voices are audible. Having said that, in pieces such as Corteccia’s Gloria Patri, the lower voice chant still dominates the upper voices, but at least they can be heard. But this begs the question, are the BBC Proms predominantly for the radio, or for the 5000+ people in the Royal Albert Hall?
Striggio’s mass was composed around 1565-66, was lost for over 400 years, and rediscovered in 2005. He took his spectacular mass on tour through Europe and it is thought that hearing it inspired Thomas Tallis to compose Spem in alium. Unlike Tallis’ work, Striggio doesn’t create the same spatial movement between choirs, using more block contrast between large and small forces. Tonight, the full tutti sound, with the brightness of the instruments, was richly textured in the Gloria and the loud plea for “pacem” at the end of the 60-part Agnus Dei was impressive. The Sanctus was one of the few places where sound from different choirs around the circle was detectable, although the upper voices sounded a little shaky at the start of the Benedictus. Because of the instruments’ acoustic dominance, it was a little like a switch going from on to off when they dropped out. The voices also lost out to the instruments in the Kyrie, but the glorious Amens brought other sections to bright conclusions.
Of the other works, Orazio Benevolo’s Magnificat stood out as the most effective. Contrast was achieved here by alternating passages for voices with instrumental sections, and there was more colour from the instruments, with a mournful sackbut at “Esurientes implevit bonis”, and greater bloom from the voices at “recordatus misericordiae suae”. Benevolo’s Laetatus sum had pacier moments, a Gloria with bite, and a beefy Amen. Massenzio’s Ave Regina caelorum balanced better the upper voices to lighter instruments, and the triple time Gaude Virgo had a good swing. Works by Palestrina were performed instrumentally, the sackbuts, dulcians and cornets producing an even sound, if a little limited in light and shade. And finally, Striggio’s other 40 part work, the motet Ecce beatam lucem had a decent pace to it, and the swells at “O quam” and “O mel” were effective. The quiet lead into “in paradisum” built to an emphatic conclusion.
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