musica Dei donum
Concert reviews
"L'École de Notre-Dame"
Contre le Temps
concert: Jan 30, 2025, Utrecht, Pieterskerk
[in order of appearance]
anon:
Mundus Vergens in defectum;
Ave gloriosa;
Pater noster;
plainchant:
Vir erat (offertorium);
anon / improvisation / Julia Marty:
Contre le temps;
anon:
Veri floris sub figura;
O lilium convallium;
Ave Maria virgo virginum;
Sol sub nube;
plainchant:
Ave Maria (offertorium);
anon:
Deus misertus hominis
Karin Weston, Cécile Walch, soprano;
Amy Farnell, Julia Marty, mezzo-soprano
Polyphony has always been a fixed part of Western music. There have been times that it was considered old-fashioned, when melody became the foundation of music, but it has never completely disappeared. However, there was a time that monophony was the standard. In that time a large repertoire of plainchant has been written which has survived until the present day. It was only in the 10th century that the first attempts to add parts to a single line have been documented, but it took a while before the technique of writing for more than a single voice disseminated.
Music from the first stages in the writing of polyphony was the subject of a concert by the ensemble Contre le Temps, which took place in the Pieterskerk in Utrecht. This ensemble was given three prizes at the Van Wassenaer Contest during the 2023 Utrecht Early Music Festival. This resulted in this series of concerts, during which the ensemble performed the music which is its speciality (although they also perform later repertoire). The ensemble's name is explained on its website: "The name Contre le Temps is borrowed from two songs, one by the French troubadour Gace Brulé and the other from an anonymous author in the Oxford manuscript, signifying the ensemble's commitment to interpreting this timeless music in an original and timeless manner."
One of the main centres of early polyphony was Paris, and the music written there has become known collectively as the 'Notre Dame School'. Two famous names are connected to it: Perotin(us) and Leonin(us). However, although Contre le Temps presented their programme under that name, these two composers were absent. All the pieces were anonymous, and the programme also included some plainchant (known as 'gregorian chant'). A piece of plainchant was also the core of the programme: the offertory Vir erat, by far the longest piece, is about Job, after whom one of the books of the Old Testament is named, and who bitterly complains about his fate, when God gives the devil the freedom to take everything away from him: his wealth, his children and lastly also his health.
Who says that such early music, and monophonic at that, can not be expressive? Not in the way of baroque music, obviously, but with entirely different means the unknown composer created a deeply impressive account of Job's laments. This was not plainchant as is usually sung, for instance in alternatim compositions of the renaissance period. I can't check what exactly is written down: it seemed to me that the performers had added something of their own, either improvised or - more likely - prepared beforehand. However, there can be no doubt that in the Middle Ages extensions of pre-existing music, including liturgical chants, were very common, and these may have been originally improvised. The impression this piece made was also due to the way it was performed: sometimes by a single voice, then by several voices or the entire ensemble. And the performers also effectively used the space of the medieval Pieterskerk which further contributed to the impact this offertory made. It was just a shame that a large part of the text was not printed in the programme.
The church was the ideal venue for this kind of music, but the disadvantage was that the texts were often hard to understand. I had the impression, for instance, that the first piece in the programme was different from the printed text. It was, like all polyphonic pieces, a conductus, which is a term generally used for music from this time, but cannot precisely be defined. As I wrote, the lament of Job was the core of the programme, and from that Contre le Temps moved into the direction of the closing piece, Deus misertus Dominus, about the redemption through the coming of Christ. From that perspective, this concert could also have been performed during Advent.
On the way to that ending (although performed before Job's lament), we heard a setting of the Pater noster, which is a rather short text, but took quite a while, which is a feature of music of the Notre Dame School: endless chains of melismas. Obviously, music about the Virgin Mary could not be omitted: we heard an Ave Maria in plainchant, and also two conducti, in which Mary is compared with a flower.
The entire programme was sacred, but the ensemble included a secular text: the one from which the ensemble took its name. Contre le Temps is a trouvère poem, but set to the melody of Sol eclypsium patitur, a monophonic conductus. It was heard in a polyphonic version, with additions by Julia Marty, one of the members of the ensemble, and improvisations. The harmony was sometimes unusual, but not fundamentally different from the particular harmonies that one encounters in the Notre Dame repertoire.
The last work in the programme has already been mentioned. There was something special in the way it was performed. According to the programme notes, dancing in the liturgy is documented from the 13th century. In accordance with this, the singers performed Deus misertus hominis with dance movements. When I was reading this in the notes, I was sceptical, but fortunately there was no real dancing: the singers confined themselves to making gestures with their hands and arms. To me it did not add anything I would have missed if it had been omitted, but it may have helped the singers to internalize what they were performing.
As one may have gathered, this was a memorably event. First: this kind of repertoire is rare, and seldom performed. It is something that can only be performed in a convincing manner by ensembles which specialize in it. It requires much research, to discover how it was performed. The fact that not everything was written down gives performers quite some freedom, but only through research of the sources they can find out how to use that freedom in a historically 'correct' manner. To my ears, Contre le Temps was entirely convincing in this department. The use of a historical pronunciation is obvious part of it.
Aside from these historical aspects, the singing was excellent, and it is easy to understand why Contre le Temps won three prizes in 2023. That seems well deserved, and one has to hope that they will continue on the way they have chosen. It is quite surprising, but very encouraging, that such repertoire attracted such a large audience, which reacted enthusiastically and encouraged the four ladies to a nice encore, in which one could once again admire the quality of the voices and the perfect ensemble of Contre le Temps.
Johan van Veen (© 2025)