Since I like to get reviews on here as soon as possible after any new release, I can hardly do any sort of job on a disc that came out in 1995 but neither can I omit mention of Utopia Triumphans by the Huelgas Ensemble. Its subtitle is The Great Polyphony of the Renaissance and it can't be put any better than that.I got myself a copy having heard Josquin's Qui Habitat on the radio a couple of weeks ago. Why I wasn't aware of that already I don't know but, unlike ignorance of the many arcane laws of the country, it is not something I can be found culpable of.
So this, if you come to this website either in fear of or in search of yet more wordage on the subject of Renaissance polyphony, is the record you want. It begins with a gorgeous and immaculately clear account of Spem in Alium, almost the best I've heard but I couldn't possibly say it's better than the 1965 King's College, Cambridge recording under David Willcocks only the day after the announcement of his death. If it sounds any better in some ways then perhaps that is due to being thirty years further down the line but it captures the same restlessness and turbulence of this sea of sound, surely one of the greatest achievements of the English Renaissance and a piece of music almost in a category of its own.
It is only incidental that I gain one more version of Spem, though, because the Josquin was the point. Qui Habitat is from a generation or two before, a similarly magnificent edifice, if less than six minutes long. It immediately muscles its way onto the very select shortlist of masterpieces from this broad period of pre-baroque music once labelled 'Early' but increasingly unfolding into an essential part of a much longer historic view of music that 40 years ago, we didn't seem to have. It belongs alongside other such unputdownable icons as Josquin's Deploration on the death of Ockeghem, Wylkynson's Jesu Autem Transiens...and the list goes on at intervals throughout the several years of this website.
The Huelgas Ensemble, it might also be said, deserve to be mentioned in any same breath as the Tallis Scholars as I notice they appear on my shelves with accounts of the Eton Choirbook and Cipriano de Rore.
So, forgive me whenever I'm next diverted into an inane discussion of why Queen were rubbish. I'm honestly not trying to be an intellectual snob- I can do that without trying- it's just that there are better things to talk about that must have come from several planets further away than all that loud, camp, pompous posturing.
Everything else on this disc is well worth having, including the Striggio Ecce beatem lucem. I thought for a moment that the Huelgas had known about the Striggio 40-part motet that Tallis took up as his model but, obviously not. Great musicological discoveries don't happen here, I'm merely a devoted fan.
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It's a long time since I had as much as two weeks out of the office. Although the last few days have been a joy, I'm not convinced I could keep that up forever.
On first reading Larkin's Toads Revisted, a few decades ago, I barely comprehended the argument that one could be grateful of work. But when the endless days of retirement seem to be foreshortened by routine, if one is not careful, I have suddenly understood why the dreary fight against corporate process can actually be satisfying. Surely there are better ways of filling up one's time. But sadly September doesn't last forever and it's a bit of a wait until it comes round again. The season of lists of books and mellow horse racing is a fine thing but, having begun to enjoy it, who is to say I won't enjoy going back to work to turn the edicts and announcements from senior management and ask, Doddy-like,
What a beautiful day. What a beautiful day to increase your performance by 10%. Okay, then, let's give it a go. But what are you going to do? Are you going to hold 10% more meetings or are you going to do 10% more non-productive talking in the same number of meetings.
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It's been a good summer on the turf, a gentle roller coaster on which one goes up and down a bit but doesn't end up any worse off than when one started. So far, I have avoided the disastrous spell I had through last year's late summer/early autumn.
John Ferguson, taking good quality flat horses from his friends at Godolphin and re-inventing them as hurdlers, has achieved an impressive strike rate but I'm not sure how clever that is or if I've won enough out of them to compensate for the catastrophes. I mean, I could win the local Sunday league football if I could sign Scholesy, Le Tissier, Giggsy and somebody else who apparently retired a few years ago, like Berbatov.
But Penglai Pavilion and Maputo were far too good to be put in the races they won so I'll be very interested in seeing if they can be more than 'flat track bullies' when the proper jumping begins.