ANTONY PITTS Missa Unitatis Clemens non Papa | Mouton Verdi | Poulenc | Ešenvalds | Muhly Nederlands Kamerkoor Cappella Pratensis Nationaal Vrouwen Jeugdkoor James McVinnie | Wilma ten Wolde Stratton Bull | Stephen Layton 1 ANTONY PITTS Missa Unitatis Clemens non Papa | Mouton Verdi | Poulenc | Ešenvalds | Muhly Nederlands Kamerkoor Cappella Pratensis Nationaal Vrouwen Jeugdkoor James McVinnie | Wilma ten Wolde Stratton Bull | Stephen Layton ANTONY PITTS (b. 1969) NICO MUHLY Missa Unitatis* Spiral Mass**** [1] Kyrie 6:46 [10] Sanctus 3:07 [2] Gloria 6:29 [11] Agnus Dei 3:54 FRANCIS POULENC (1899-1963) GIUSEPPE VERDI (1813-1901) [3] Ave verum** 2:25 [12] Laudi alla vergine Maria** 5:41 JEAN MOUTON (before 1459-1522) ANTONY PITTS [4] Nesciens mater*** 3:48 Missa Unitatis* [13] Sanctus 4:34 TRADITIONAL DALARNA [5] Den signade dag** 2:12 ĒRIKS EŠENVALDS (b. 1977) [14] Spring, the Sweet Spring** 3:23 NICO MUHLY (b. 1981) Spiral Mass**** JACOBUS CLEMENS NON PAPA (1510/15-1555/56) [6] Kyrie 3:05 [15] Ego flos campi*** 2:48 [7] Gloria 4:15 ANTONY PITTS TRADITIONAL DALARNA (arrangement S. Rosenberg) Missa Unitatis* [8] Hemlig stod jag** 4:15 [16] Agnus Dei 3:02 ANTONY PITTS total time 64:06 Missa Unitatis* * Cappella Pratensis/Nederlands Kamerkoor | Stephen Layton, conductor [9] Credo 4:14 ** Nationaal Vrouwen Jeugdkoor | Wilma ten Wolde, conductor *** Cappella Pratensis | Stratton Bull, conductor **** Nederlands Kamerkoor | James McVinnie, organ | Stephen Layton, conductor 4 5 Cappella Pratensis Introduction Stratton Bull, Andrew Hallock | superius This program around the Missa Unitatis represents a meeting of many different Lior Leibovici, Pieter De Moor | altus musical travellers. Shortly after making its home in the southern Dutch city of Peter de Laurentiis, Arnout Lems | tenor ’s-Hertogenbosch in 2006, Cappella Pratensis renewed its acquaintance with Lieven Deroo, Pieter Stas | bassus an organisation that has been travelling through some 700 years of history, the Confraternity of the Illustrious Lady. To celebrate the Year of Religious Nederlands Kamerkoor Heritage in 2008, the Confraternity commissioned a work by the British Annet Lans, Mónica Monteiro, Maria Valdmaa | soprano composer Antony Pitts, thereby continuing the tradition of works of religious Sofia Gvirts, Kaspar Kröner, Chantal Nysingh | alto art made for the organisation, including an altarpiece decorated by one of its Stefan Berghammer, Alberto ter Doest, William Knight | tenor most celebrated members, Jheronimus Bosch. In a reflection of the ecumenical Kees Jan de Koning, Gilad Nezer, Jasper Schweppe | bass make-up of the Confraternity (since the seventeenth century it has been evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants), Pitts composed a ‘mass Nationaal Vrouwen Jeugdkoor of unity’, in fact two separate compositions that can be performed in sync. Veronika Akhmetchina, Indra van de Bilt, Margot Bongenaar, Femke Bruggeman, Noor The two separate works were given their premieres by, respectively, the choir Eddes, Kaylie Fopma, Julia Frieling, Romy Gansevoort, Hanneke Hommes, Michal de Jong, of ’s-Hertogenbosch Cathedral and Cappella Pratensis. Marjolijn Katerberg, Florine Marinelli, Leonie Masselink, Eva Oosterveld, Mieke Overvliet, Berbele Putter, Josja de Ridder, Noëmi Schermann, Irene Spoelman, Inge Stok, Karen The commemoration, in 2016, of 500 years since the death of Jheronimus Bosch Stok, Vera Tolk, Lauren Wessel, Britte Wijtmans, Bernet Wilms, Hilde van Zandbergen was the ideal opportunity to premiere the double-choir version of the Missa Unitatis. The Nederlands Kamerkoor graciously accepted the invitation to join forces with Cappella Pratensis, and the celebrated British musician Stephen Layton brought his wealth of choral experience as conductor. In the series of concerts that followed, in April 2016, a crucial component was the participation of amateur chamber choirs. In this way, each concert was also a meeting between the professional and amateur choral worlds. For the present recording, 6 7 the performances of the Nationaal Vrouwen Jeugdkoor represent this aspect that ‘they all may be one; as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they of the project. The resulting program is a musical crossroads where fellow also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that You have sent Me.’ travellers share their stories with each other and with you, the listener, creating (John 17:21) a moment of unity in diversity – before moving on to new voyages. The Missa Unitatis is the first new mass setting to have been commissioned by Stratton Bull the Illustre Lieve Vrouwe Broederschap (Confraternity of the Illustrious Lady, founded in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in 1318) in almost 500 years, and was written for and premièred separately by two choirs – Cappella Pratensis and the Schola Cantorum of Sint-Janskathedraal, ‘s-Hertogenbosch – each different in size MISSA UNITATIS (8 voices, c. 50 voices), in range (one a 4th higher than the other), and in Recorded here for the first time with two choirs simultaneously, Nederlands function (one a liturgical, the other a concert ensemble). Inspired by the Kamerkoor and Cappella Pratensis, the Missa Unitatis is all about finding – Confraternity’s uniquely balanced membership – precisely as many Protestants and striving to find – mutual understanding. By hearing the five sections of the as Roman Catholics – and by the ingenuities of Ockeghem’s Missa Prolationum Mass interleaved with the diverse separate contributions of each ensemble, and Missa Cuiusvis toni, this ‘Mass of Unity’ is designed to be performed by as well as the Nationaal Vrouwen Jeugdkoor, the theme of potential underlying two choirs separately and/or together: the conceit is that there exists an unity is underlined, and in this recording given a new and unique interpretation. invisible source – an original manuscript – of which the two versions are Choral music has the potential to be a taste of heaven, or at least the radically different editions, thus playing with the tension between intention longing for heaven: partly because it involves our most intimate faculties of and interpretation, original and modern notation. On a technical level, communication, and partly because it allows humans to live and act in harmony the familiar Mediaeval/Renaissance proportion of 4:3 is invoked on many in a very literal way (even if only for a few fleeting moments). There is a journey levels, while the melodic cell or head-motif of E, F, G, B-flat, F, C permeates towards a Spirit-led unity through the five ‘movements’ of this Mass setting – the texture from start to finish. Although different in speed and pitch at various from alternating perspectives in the Kyrie and opposing rhetoric in the Gloria, points, these two versions can be sung together in a number of ways – to be via simultaneous declaration in the Credo, and intense re-exploration in the discovered by the performers. The conductor Stephen Layton collaborated Sanctus and Benedictus, to the final heartfelt agreement of the Agnus Dei. with the composer to arrive at the version on this disc. A new edition of this The vision is one of fulfilment of the prayer of Jesus after the Last Supper, version is available from www.lulu.com/1equalmusic. 8 9 Kyrie Credo To begin, the Kyrie’s ninefold structure (Kyrie-Kyrie-Kyrie, Christe-Christe-Christe, The central Credo (the composer’s wife’s favourite of all his pieces) is upbeat and Kyrie-Kyrie-Kyrie) is filled with a selection from the many possibilities outlined in full of energy, with harmonic echoes of a 12-bar blues – deliberately very different the single-choir versions of the Missa Unitatis. Each of the three groups of three from what many people associate with the weekly proclamation of the Nicene sections begins with a kind of plainchant – a version of the six-note head-motif – (or Constantinopolitan) Creed, easily dulled by familiarity. The music is such that after which the two worlds of Choir I and Choir II alternate in polyphony. In the the whole text can, in theory, be intoned on one note; in this double-choir version third section Choir II sings the music that Choir I sang in the second section, one part from Choir II leads three parts from Choir I, who are then echoed by but slower and lower (by the interval of a fourth) and with an extra melody line the remaining one part from Choir I leading three parts from Choir II. On the on top; for ‘Christe eleison’ this process is more-or-less reversed in the fifth and text of the Creed there is then, almost complete unity (to be exact: in the score sixth sections; and then in the ninth section – the final ‘Kyrie eleison’ – the two the ‘filioque’ clause, a point of division in the Church between East and West a Choirs both sing the same music together, but notated differently (one with thousand years ago, is set in such a way that it can be omitted or retained triplets, the other with dotted notes). as necessary). Gloria Sanctus This process of searching for unity moves a step closer in the Gloria, where the The Sanctus and Benedictus move into a richer and more intricate exploration relaxed triplets of Choir II and the lively dotted notes of Choir I seem to be of the Mass’s musical themes and ideas: first a peroration of two intervals from speaking at each other, then coming together at both appearances of ‘Jesu the head-motif – the semitone and the perfect fourth – for the words ‘Holy, Holy, Christe’ in the text, the one ‘foundation’ of the Church (1 Corinthians 3:11) – Holy’; then block chords in groups of three for ‘Heaven and earth are full of Your the first time slowing down into a call-and-answer section, the second time in glory’; a sinewy ‘Hosanna’ followed by answering calls of ‘in excelsis’ between the exact and happy unison after many back-and-forward phrases of polyphony.