Seraphic Fire pays tribute to an illustrious Spanish predecessor

By David Fleshler

Amanda Quist conducted Seraphic Fire Thursday night in Boca Raton.

In addition to ruling Spain, central Europe and much of the Americas—as well as making war against the Ottoman Empire and confronting the Protestant Reformation—the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V founded a highly regarded choral ensemble.

The emperor brought the elite singers of Capilla Flamenca with him from the Netherlands when he traveled south to take the Spanish throne, and they set the standard for choral performance at a time when singing was at the heart of classical music. Seraphic Fire is presenting a tribute to Capilla Flamenca’s work and reputation with a series of concerts that began Thursday at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton.

Serving as guest conductor was Amanda Quist, former director of choral studies at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and now director of choral activities at Western Michigan University’s Irving S. Gilmore School of Music.

The program, a fascinating tour through what audiences might have heard in the 1500s, included one composer likely to be familiar to many listeners, Josquin des Prez, and several who probably are not, such as Thomas Crecquillon, Adrian Willaert and Clemens non Papa.

The concert was organized around a mass by Crecquillon, with the movements interspersed through the concert with secular works by other composers.

The unaccompanied polyphonic music, in which voices continuously cascaded over each other, showed off the choir’s laser-like precision and vocal gleam. Under Quist’s direction, the choir performed the movements of Crecquillon’s mass with finely balanced tones and subtle crescendoes and phrasing that expressed religious joy and devotion in music dominated by high voices.

More varied were the short secular works sprinkled through the program, which expressed romantic love, celebrated military prowess and explored a wide range of human emotions.

A quartet of singers produced a surprisingly rich sound in a grave, stately performance of des Prez’s “Mille Regretz,” an expression of remorse at leaving a lover. By the same composer, “El Grillo” (The Cricket) was a boisterous episode marked by a striking rhythmic figure, sung with vigor by the four singers.

In Willaert’s “Haud aliter pugnans,” ascending vocal lines celebrated Charles V’s military prowess. A particularly striking work was that composer’s “Vecchie letrose,” whose title means “spiteful old hags.” The venomous words (“Beat, beat, beat with your canes, spiteful old hags…”) were practically spit out—albeit in a refined, Seraphic Fire sort of way—with the singers lowering their voices to a sinister murmur for the work’s quiet repetition.

The best-known work on the program was des Prez’s Ave Maria. In a well-paced performance, Quist and the singers gave the work a strong sense of vocal space, with pauses between phrases that provided temporary repose, making room for the next phrase to take off and soar, as voices layered upon voices as they approached the next climax.

An encore celebrated the 500th birthday of the most famous Renaissance composer of them all, Giovanni Palestrina, with a glowing, expressive performance of his famous motet Sicut Cervus.

Seraphic Fire will repeat the program 8 p.m. Friday at Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables; 7:30 p.m. Saturday at All Saints Episcopal Church, Fort Lauderdale; and 4 p.m. Sunday at Moorings Presbyterian Church, Naples. A pre-concert conversation will take place an hour before each performance. seraphicfire.org

Posted in Performances


Leave a Comment








Fri Jan 17, 2025
at 11:14 am
No Comments