The Renaissance Choir

Since the advent of spring is supposed to turn one's thoughts to love, it was more than appropriate that The Renaissance Choir devoted last Friday's concert entirely to songs of love, both of sacred and secular inspiration. Fogg Museum complemented the music with a delightful exhibition of prints, drawings and illustrated books related to the themes or scenes of the songs.

The works, all written in the period 1450-1600, included pieces by Dunstable, Dufay, Isaak, Senfl, Taverner, Janequin, Marenzio, Dowland, and the long-lived and prolific Anonymous. Some items were well-known; others were probably performed in this country for the first time.

Conductor Robert Beckwith correctly limited his chorus to less than a dozen singers, thereby making possible a precision and a clarity that a large group could not achieve. The first half of the opening Taverner piece suffered from a breathy tone and general insecurity, which could doubtless have been avoided through an adequate warm-up before the concert. From then on, the chorus sang well in response to Beckwith's supple yet restrained and unostentatious conducting, done wholly from memory.

The choral high point was the group of three light, spirited chansons by Janequin, executed with superb timing and diction. They also pointed up the poignancy and dramatic expression of the following Cruda Amarilli by Marenzio, the greatest Italian madrigalist, who shows the influence of the oncoming Baroque.

The Choir was assisted by contralto Claire Smith, baritone Robert Simon, and six instrumentalists playing recorders, viols, lute and harp. The performance of one of Isaak's beautiful settings of the popular Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen showed three ways in which such pieces were executed in the Renaissance: the first verse by chorus alone, the second by Simon and three instruments, the third by chorus and instruments combined. (The Durer water colors of Inns bruck in the exhibition made clear why so many people hated to leave the little town.) With Simon and a lutanist at hand, I wonder why Beckwith gave us only the choral version of Dowland's charming ayre What If I Never Speed?; for Dowland himself included a setting for solo with lute accompaniment.

Miss Smith proved to have a pleasing voice, though it was impossible to understand her words. Simon made every syllable perfectly clear. He was joined by soprano Ann Hollander and the two viols in an extraordinarily moving performance of the deservedly popular Ich sag ade; but why, the second time through, did they choose to end in the middle? The six instrumentalists turned in fair jobs, with the exception of Ich stund an cinem Morgen, whose rhythmic complexities, even on a second try, seemed to preclude staying together.

The Renaissance courtyard of the Fogg Museum provided ideal visual and acoustical surroundings for this evening of lovely Renaissance music.