Boston Early Music News review of "Crossroads of the Celts"
Boston Early Music News, July 1997
Another young ensemble unfamiliar to many is Altramar, an Indiana-based group specializing in lesser known repertoire from the Medieval period, rethinking HIP along the way. Their concert, Crossroads of the Celts, focused on sacred and secular music (i.e. mythology and folklore) from the eleventh through sixteenth centuries.
As with much music from the MIddle Ages, there is frustratingly little information about the actual performance practice of this repertoire. Thus, Altramar was left to reconstruct their renditions using a combination of contemporary treatises, iconography, ancient slate fragements, and even modern field recordings! Difficult, time-consuming work, but ultimately relying as heavily upon the talent, creativity and imagination of the performers as on the thoroughness of their schoalrship. If this isn't the very definition of HIP then I don't know what is.
Take for example the Irish chant Cristo canamus gloriam. I just about jumped out of my seat when tenor/percussionist Stattelman and soprano/harpist Mariani started singing organum in parallel thirds. It turns out, however, that in the course of their research they stumbled across some rather interesting indirect references by Gerald of Wales and Anonymous IV that caught their eyes. Combined with Celtic melodic types and fragments of notated early polyphony from the regions, this indicated to Altramar the "existence of an insular unnotated tradition of partsinging" with an emphasis on thirds. Wierd? Yes. But who can argue with such risk-taking when they've obviously done their homework?
The concert opened with Winter, an anonymous piece from the eleventh-century Irish Liber Hymnorum, performed here by Stattelman and Cosart on crwth (a rare Medieval Welsh instrument that is a cross between a lyre and a vielle; so rare, in fact, that Cosart is one of the only crwth players in the world). After a haunting, ultra-minimalist two-minute introduction of solo crwth, Stattelman entered in a beautiful pp. He does some bizarre things with his posture while singing, but no matter, as his is one of the most natural, resonant tenor voices I've heard in recent memory.
Smith, cruit and gittern, utterly captivated the audience with his dramatic telling of The Lay of the Forge, a pre-Christian Celtic tale in old Gaelic. I could almost hear Lon the Giant's footsteps and feel the heat from the bellows in the Cave of Chorainn; it couldn't have been more exciting if we had all been transported to an open bonfire in ancient Scotland.
Despite the lack of ambience in the Paulist Center Chapel (70s post- Vatican kitsch), Altramar's concert was as magical and mystical as the Celtic tales they told. Altramar will record this program for Dorian sometime in the next year; let's hope it's as enchanting as their BEMF performance.
--Lansing McCloskey
Go here to visit Dorian's web site.
Back to Altramar Home Page.
This page and all contents copyright 1997-98 by Altramar medieval music ensemble.