Polyphony

Yesterday was a day filled with polyphony.

Before I headed to the First Lutheran Church in Boston, I dropped by KFC to try the chicken again. (I used a coupon for a free piece of trans fat-free chicken yesterday.) The fried chicken (original) really tastes like the fried chicken one gets at one of the Buffet.com restaurants. The "herbs and spices" still taste the same; what accounts for the difference? It's not like the pieces are fried at the "restaurant--aren't they just heated up and put in the warmer? I think I will have to try Korean fried chicken, and see if that becomes the new KFC for me.

The performance yesterday was the last of the free community outreach concerts being put on by Exsultemus for the 2006-7 season. The group performs around 3 programs each season, usually 2 times for each program. The last program is free though donations are welcome, and they performed it at 4 different venues. The theme for the program was the Portuguese Renaissance. They have a new female singer; there is some turnover for the group. This was the first Exsultemus performance I attended this season, but I don't think the change in members affected the quality of singing. Miss Thea Lobo is still a member of the ensemble, and she has her own website. (Some samples of her singing.)

Their pronunciation of the Latin was quite different this time -- iirc, soft c's ( = s), different pronunciations of the e's depending on the position (final e = short i, first e = short a), and u's were short u's, or almost like a's? I forgot if the j's were pronounced as they are in English or as y's. (Sorry, I don't know the proper phonetic term.) Is this the portuguese pronunciation of Latin? If so, I wonder if they had a coach or resource.

There was a nice reception after the concert.

I took another walk down Newbury Street, before heading over to Cambridge for the performance by Convivium Musicum.

The ensemble is quite proficient, though there was some hesitation or restraint (meekness) at the beginning of some of certain parts, which were initiated by a small number of voices. Perhaps that is their style, but it did seem a bit off to me. Their pronunciation of the Latin was not quite ecclesiastical either--soft c's instead of the "ch" sound. I think everything else was the same though.

Some info about last night's performance:

Convivium presents a concert of joyous and festive music by Cristóbal de Morales, Francisco Guerrero, and Alonso de Lobo. The program’s centerpiece is Lobo’s Missa Simile est regnum caelorum, a mass whose musical material is derived throughout from Guerrero’s radiant motet of the same name, which sets a parable about grace.

The director of Convuvium Musicum, Mr. Scott Metcalfe is stepping down after this season.


You can hear some samples here.

Note: Musica Sacra will be singing some Renaissance madrigals on June 2.

I will post some photos that I took in the past couple of days some time this week.

Random comments:
A lot of the older women at the concerts were wearing unflattering clothes--a certain kind of frumpy look. It reminded me of a certain professor visiting Harvard this past week to give the Whitehead lecture. Pants and shirts all around... certainly not very feminine and appropriately dignified for a lady. Certainly the clothes do not hide the figure well, and taken to an extreme it appears very careless and slovenly. The same sort of criticism could be applied to some of the academic women attending the Whitehead lecture, though undoubtedly for many of them the look is a part of their feminist identity.

The older men wore shirts and slacks, maybe a jacket as well. No criticism to be made specific to them. (The advantage of having a rather fixed wardrobe.)

I wonder how much of a problem obesity was for the ancient Greeks. Would being fat (and being responsible for that condition of the body) be a source of shame for them?

During the day I was wondering if retreats would be necessary if people had a structured prayer life, setting aside time to be apart from others and to devote to private and liturgical prayer. The quality of time spent, rather than the quantity. Then again, even the pope and the cardinals go on retreats, and one would think that their prayer life has enough structure. Even if one has a good prayer life, it may be that there isn't enough time for meditation and prayer because it is occupied by the affairs of life, and so one really needs to find solitude and go on a time out. Perhaps the better question to ask is whether a beginner can profit from a retreat devoted exclusively to prayer (like at certain monasteries), or if he would not benefit from having other activities fill up his time, such as work (as is the case at other monasteries). I'm a beginner, and definitely do not have the appropriate state of soul that would enable me to benefit from that much leisure time. It would be better for me to have some time filled up by useful work.

While I was listening to polyphony I was wondering how it would be possible to keep both polyphony and plainchant, if one is trying to bring back an authentic liturgical spirituality for the laity, and all that entails, including the various forms of participation, such as singing. Hence my preference for an Eastern-rite liturgy over the typical Roman-rite liturgy (whether it be according to the old missal or the new)...

It's been a while since I've participated in a Christendom liturgy.