Albany Times-Union Review of Iberian Garden concert
New ways to hear the ancients
TROY--Dorian Recordings Live! at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall inaugurated a new classical music series at the hall.
Making its Capital Region debut, the four-member medieval music ensemble Altramar -- literally "over the sea" -- opened the 1997-97 five-concert seaon Sunday with a program that mixed and matched Jewish, Christian, and Muslim musical traditions in a program entitled "Iberian Garden." Whatever the sources, the music, some of it more than 1,500 years old and all of it strictly monodic -- essentially one melodic line is slightly embellished with percussion effects of drums and symbols -- takes a good deal of getting used to. However old their source, new sounds require new ears.
The music -- mostly sung and acclaimed poetry in languages probably unfamiliar to most of the audience -- summon to mind the dark fortresses of medieval Spain and the tales told by troubadors in those dour halls. Most surprising was the enormous vaiety of sound achieved by the four performers who sang and played stringed and percussion instruments (no winds at all), proving once again the incredible sensuality of the human voice singing or reciting. The quartet reinvigorated this ancient music with considerable vivacity and verve.
Although all the performers sang at one time or another, there were two main vacalists, both with uniques voices and a sense of style that wed words and music most convincingly.
Angela Mariani, whether she was singing and reciting verses (lines 3145- 3187) from "The Song of Cid", Spain's great anonymous epic poem about its first national hero, or expressing the mixed emotions of a strophic Arabic zajal, Mariani sounded entirely at ease with what she was performing. We do not know what it sounded like when it was first performed but Mariani seemed right.
David Stattelman has a clear effortless tenor voice. He sang "Cantiga No. 10: Rosa das Rosas," a hymn to the Virgin Mary, with ethereal sweetness.
Jann Cosart played a number of viols and rebecs, demonstrating that instruments often were made to imitate the human voice.
Chris Smith played the lute, the oud, and a number of percussion instruments as well as narrating poetic stanzas from time to time.
The upper galleries at the Music Hall were covered with a floor to ceiling cloth and a couple of rows of front seats were removed for the performance recorded by Dorian for later broadcast on National Public Radio's "Performance Today" series carried locally by WMHT-FM. No specific date for the broadcast of Altramar has been announced.
Go here for an "Iberian Garden" program
description.
Go here to visit Dorian's web site.
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