New Waves in Ferrara: Appealing on Many Levels, Enargeically

S  wain argues that in Renaissance music stylized cadences—7-6 suspension cadences, with the penultimate soprano note raised a half-step, where necessary, to create a leading-tone—served to provide an easily recognizable cue to phrase endings. From this developed the V7-I cadence, a gesture whose pitch content was so distinctive that the strict rhythmic conventions of the Renaissance cadence were no longer necessary. He argues that it is no accident that the rise of genres such as the string quartet and the symphony—lacking, as they did, the solo/ripieno contrast of the Baroque concerto—coincided with a new interest in the possibilities of large-scale tonal contrast. With one kind of contrast no longer available, something new had to be found to take its place.”
  — David Temperley, commenting in 1999 on Joseph Swain’s ‘Musical Languages’.

G  esualdo proves [that] ... individual compositions, in the last analysis, count not for what they contribute to the development of a [musical] language, but how they handle their own ‘native’ language [that encompasses expressions and idioms in the broader culture, far beyond music], and it remained for a later perspective to rediscover the intrinsic value... It is a cliché to say of a great composition that it appeals on many levels, but the [inevitably] stratified nature of any musical community makes the cliché a real—almost indispensable—virtue. The health of a musical community depends on great numbers of people who simply listen with sensitivity and intelligence ... plus a few listeners who may attend to the more abstract effects of syntax as well.”
  — Joseph Swain, p. 165.

T he performance last night in Kansas City by Piffaro & King’s Noyse with Ellen Hargis entitled ‘New Waves in Ferrara: Two Bands, Fresh Sounds’ illustrated a number of 16^th and 17^th Century innovations. “Large-scale tonal contrasts” of the sort referred to in the quotes above and a surprising amount of chromaticism were among them.

T he King’s Noyse consists of five members (two Renaissance-design violins with the neck in-line with the box, two tenor-register violins slightly larger than a viola, and one cello-sized ‘bass violin’) plus Ellen Hargis (soprano). And Piffaro nominally has seven members, but they have on their on-stage table an arsenal of recorders of various sizes/registers, shawms (pre-cursors to oboes, ranging from tiny sopranini ones to giant basso ones), Renaissance bagpipes, sackbuts (trombones), dulcians (precursors to bassoons, in various sizes/registers), harp, lute, guitar/vihuela, percussion instruments). The instrumentation of the ensemble changes with every piece!

I n contrast to the ‘modern’, ‘individualistic’ intimacy that characterizes chamber music from the Baroque forward, the works that Piffaro-plus-King’s Noyse performed (by de Rore, Gesualdo, Luzzaschi, Agostini, and others) reveal the astonishing degree to which each individual musician had to envision and remember and anticipate the voice-leading of others’ parts as well as her/his own part. What I mean is, the kind of intimacy that is evoked in the chamber music ensemble literature from Baroque times onward entails each voice in the ensemble responding to one or more of the others on a relatively short timescale on the order of milliseconds to seconds. By contrast, the kind of intimacy evoked in the ‘New Waves in Ferrara: Two Bands, Fresh Sounds’ program embodies a kind of ‘collective’ intimacy—arising partly from the mostly-barline-less musical text, and from the musicians’ relation to that text, which entails their planning (conceptualizing in advance, and remembering) their playing on a time horizon of multiple bars, multiple phrases, or even an entire piece. The Renaissance ‘evenly-written polyphony,’ orchestrated such that each instrumental part resembles the human voice, compels a collective ‘band-like’ mentality and rhetoric—as David Douglass and Bob Wiemken said during their pre-concert lecture. [There are various writings on Renaissance poetry that characterize this sort of rhetoric as ‘enargeia’—‘to create or energize a communal actuality’ (see Norton, Plett, and Sharpling links below). I don’t notice that this term is used in the Renaissance musicology research literature, but, if it’s true that it’s not already so used, it seems to me that the musicologists might do well to adopt/adapt this expression from their literary colleagues.]

B efore attending the concert I looked at my copy of Anne Smith’s book (link below), which contains photomacrographs of original scores of Renaissance ensemble and vocal music. In some scores, 16^th-Century composers corrected some notes and made the revisions in the margins or with the correction immediately following the passage as it was originally written. In other words, due to the costliness of paper the composer chose to fill-in empty spaces rather than use a new piece of paper for revision work. In other examples, the parts/voices were not notated in bar-vertical-alignment with each other—again to save paper. The rehearsal and performance consequences of this Renaissance Northern Italian notational practice in terms of performers’ reading and memory and interpretation were (and are!) monumental. And, regardless whether Piffaro/King’s Noyse/Hargis have created for themselves fair-copy transcriptions (using contemporary music software like Finale® or Sibelius®) that conform to modern practices for readability, the inherent challenges and the virtuosic complexity of the parts remain.

O f course, to deliver an emotionally-moving performance and coherent, worthy interpretation of any music requires each performer to have a vision of the whole piece in mind; requires conceiving the trajectory of the whole. Even if there are random/aleatoric/improvisatory elements, you have to have some advance plan or vision or notion of how you will execute those. The distinct or special aspect of this Renaissance music is the long scope this planning has—the autocorrelation and inter-part crosscorrelation with look-aheads/lags of multiple bars, multiple phrases, or even an entire piece. Makes our frenetic little attention-spans of today seem even tinier than usual!

M ore than that, though, these long timescale inter-relationships—and the look of the scores, and the notations’ shapes, and the composers’ revisions in the margins—seem like beautiful schematic diagrams—wiring diagrams!—that specify meditations on courtly love, loss, reminiscence, and how people related to each other (or, how the composer conceptualized those relations, conditioned by the values and morés of their patrons) in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries. With evocative Italian poetic lyrics (very nice English translations by Hargis and others in the program notes, by the way)— every passage unfolds an ineffable narrative, charting the process, drawing us in, revealing more and more of the human condition—what it means to be human in any Age. Emulating Walt Whitman’s famous phrase “I contain multitudes,” we consider the “you” in this Renaissance music: we imagine that, in this Renaissance music replete as it is with all of these Large-scale Mutual Awarenesses, the “you” of each performer truly contains multitudes. This is why we like serious music of all kinds, and why we love to attend concerts; at least partly why—one major reason among many.

T  he idea ... that one can understand the ratios of musical consonances [in tempered scales] without experiencing them with the senses is wrong. Nor can one know the true theory of music without being deeply versed in its practice.”
  — Letter from mathematician Giovanni Battista Benedetti to composer Cipriano de Rore, 1563.

• Piffaro website
  
• Piffaro CDs/MP3s
  
• Piffaro channel on YouTube
  
• Ellen Hargis website
  
• King’s Noyse website
  
• King’s Noyse CDs/MP3s
  
• Atlas A. Renaissance Music. Norton, 1998.
  
• Brown H, Stein L. Music in the Renaissance. 2e. Prentice-Hall, 1998.
  
• Donaldson T. Shapes for Sounds: Why Alphabets Look Like They Do. Batty, 2012.
  
• Gann K. The case against over-notation. Blogpost, JUN-2000.
  
• Gardner A. Notation creation. NewMusicBox.com, 22-MAR-2012.
  
• Gerou T, Lusk L. Essential Dictionary of Music Notation. Alfred, 1996.
  
• Griscom R, Lasocki D. The Recorder: A Research and Information Guide. 3e. Routledge, 2011.
  
• Haar J. The Art and Science of Renaissance Music. Princeton Univ, 1998.
  
• Herzog W. Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (Tod für fünf Stimmen). (1995)
  
• Heussenstamm G. Norton Manual of Music Notation. Norton, 1987.
  
• Kite-Powell J, ed. A Performer’s Guide to Renaissance Music. 2e. Indiana Univ, 2007.
  
• McGrain M. Music Notation. Berklee, 1990.
  
• Newcomb A, ed. Luzzasco Luzzaschi: Complete Unaccompanied Madrigals. A-R, 2010.
  
• Nicholl M, Grudzinski R. Music Notation: Preparing Scores and Parts. Berklee, 2007.
  
• Norton G, ed. The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Vol. 3: The Renaissance. Cambridge Univ, 1999. [enargeia]
  
• Owens J. Composers at Work: The Craft of Musical Composition. Oxford Univ, 1998. (de Rore’s and others’ use of erasable tablets for composing and revising, mainly to conserve paper, see Ch. 5!)
  
• Pike L. Hexachords in Late-Renaissance Music. Scholar, 1998.
  
• Plett H. Rhetoric and Renaissance Culture. de Gruyter, 2005. [enargeia, p. 98ff]
  
• Powell S. Music Engraving Today: The Art and Practice of Digital Notesetting. Brichtmark, 2002.
  
• Read G. Music Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice. Taplinger, 1979.
  
• Roemer C. The Art of Music Copying. Roerick, 1973.
  
• Sauer T. Notations21. Batty, 2009.
  
• Sauer T. Notations21.net website
  
• Sharpling G. Towards a rhetoric of experience: The role of enargeia in the essays of Montaigne. Rhetorica J Hist Rhetoric 2002;20:173-92.
  
• Smith A. The Performance of 16th-Century Music: Learning from the Theorists. Oxford Univ, 2011.
  
• Stone K. Music Notation in the Twentieth Century: A Practical Guidebook. Norton, 1980.
  
• Swain J. Musical Languages. Norton, 1997.
  
• Watkins G. Gesualdo: The Man and His Music. 2e. Oxford Univ, 1991.
  
• Wainwright J, Holman P, eds. From Renaissance to Baroque: Change in Instruments and Instrumental Music in the Seveteenth Century. Ashgate, 2005.
  
• Whitwell D. The History and Literature of the Wind Band and Wind Ensemble: The Renaissance Wind Band and Wind Ensemble. Vol. 2. 2e. Whitwell, 2011. (Ch. 10 & Ch. 16 concern Italian civic and church wind bands, respectively.)
  
• Whitwell D. The History and Literature of the Wind Band and Wind Ensemble: The Baroque Wind Band and Wind Ensemble. Vol. 3. Whitwell, 1983 & 2011. (Part 2, Ch. 3: ‘Court Wind Bands in Italy’)
  
• Luzzaschi page at Wikipedia
  
• Luzzaschi search at ScorSer.com
  
• de Rore page at Wikipedia
  
• Frescobaldi page at Wikipedia
  
• Gesualdo page at Wikipedia

Tallis Scholars’ sound, or why 176 KHz/192 KHz HD sampling for choral chamber music is important

I   t is known that energy in the 5-20 KHz range can be perceived even when it is 50 dB or more below the main voice spectrum peak. Also, these upper frequencies are conventionally emphasized in the production of popular vocal music. Yet very few studies of the acoustic content of this range have been made. High fidelity recordings were made of singers sustaining vowels at varying levels of vocal effort. A general characterization of the two highest octaves 5-20 KHz was sought. The prevalence of high-frequency energy, the variation of harmonics signal-to-noise ratio as a function of frequency, and the covariation with overall SPL were all highly variable, but several landmark features were identified... [including] clusters of resonances in the regions 7-10 KHz and 13-16 KHz. Harmonic energy was observed to over 16 KHz in strong female voices.”
  —  Sten Ternström, KTH Stockholm, 2008.

T he Tallis Scholars’ performance in Kansas City tonight was gorgeous. The concert was performed in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, which has a central altar and a wide chancel such that there are myriad acoustic reflections that arrive at one’s ears from multiple directions. Unlike many performance venues where reflected sound for people seated in most locations is predominantly from one or two general directions, Immaculate Conception has quite high reflective efficiency from many of its interior surfaces.

I f you are seated close to the ensemble—not more than, say, 10 meters away from the sound source—the sound projects exaggerated cues of ‘spatiality’, accentuating the atmospheric qualities that are there in the music and the text. This was especially true tonight during the pieces by Arvo Pärt, which have considerable dissonance and frisson amongst the parts, with long sustained notes during which the spatial effects from the direct and indirect sounds arriving at our ears can be fully appreciated.

T    aking into account the speed of sound, we can convert energy defocusing in the time domain to “smear” in distance estimation by the ears. Energy spread over ±500 ms is the same as a distance smear of ±15 cm. 96 KS/s keeps almost all the energy within about ±50 ms, or ±1.5 cm. One of the observations people make about 96 KS/s material is that the spatial localisation of everything is very much better than 44.1 KS/s. 192 KS/s is better than this, although very dependent on amp and speaker performance to demonstrate it.”
  —  Mike Story, 1997.

T he spectrum of frequencies and harmonics returning to your ears in this marble-and-plaster, highly-reflective cathedral has a surprising, pleasing amount of power in the range 4 KHz and up. In an age when noise and unpleasant/irrational/blurred stimuli bombard us every day, the Tallis Scholars’ sound in this sort of brightly reverberant performance space restores our belief in clarity—restores our belief in the fidelity of human communication across large distances in space and time. It is as though high signal-to-noise ratio becomes an aesthetic and cultural emblem of Civilization itself.

W hat I mean is, the sound (with its high S/N and high-end harmonics) not only embodies the enduring and transcendent meaning of the sacred music that Tallis performs and the human spirituality that caused this music to be written so long ago, but it asserts the very possibility of transcendence and persistence—of meaning that lasts beyond one’s own lifetime. After the concert, I go to Gimell Records’ website and download a couple of their 24-bit 176 KHz-sampled Studio Master high-def recordings, to get more of this. What I hear is truly thrilling—as good as the live performance.

C onventional wisdom doubts that humans can hear frequencies much higher than 20 KHz—frequencies higher than that are only perceptible to dogs and other animals. That is foolish—misinformation propagated uncritically since 50 years ago. In recent years, the misconception persists as a reflection of the fact that otolaryngologists’ and audiologists’ primary focus has been on “basic,” “practical” functions such as a person’s ability to hear and accurately understand speech. By contrast, research concerned with aesthetic and musical functioning has received much less attention or funding. [Measurement equipment for studying acoustics of bats in the 20 to 100 KHz part of the spectrum has existed for quite awhile—bat and bird and other animal communication is the subject of scholarly articles in acoustics society journals—but not many researchers studying humans have utilized it. Part of the reason why the freqency spectrum above 4 KHz for vocalizations has been under-studied is that high-speed video strobolaryngoscopy has been unable to detect the very small-amplitude (~0.1mm) vibrations in the larynx. Not surprisingly, if you can’t detect something, then you tend not to study what you can’t detect.]

T here is a common, mistaken notion that frequency response above 10 KHz is only relevant to sibilant “S” or fricative “F” type consonants in speech or singing. Well, that is most definitely not true, as evidenced by tonight’s Tallis Scholars performance! Recent research by Brian Monson, Andrew Lotto, and colleagues at the University of Arizona in Tucson (link below) shows that the frequency spectrum above 8 KHz figures prominently in singers’ sustained-vowel sound imaging—and figures also in listeners’ perception of open vowel sounds. The Pärt works in tonight’s program—and the effects of reverberation in these, in Immaculate’s chancel—especially emphasize intervallic and spatial relationships and transformations, and remind me of a workshop led by John Roeder at the 2003 Mannes Institute. That workshop examined expressive transformational representations for music by Pärt and others, and addressed how transformational representations relate to musical form, and to how musical forms are experienced. Varied repetition as in Pärt amounts to retracing similar transformational pathways among different sets of musical objects, and plumbing the extent and meaning of their similarities. Canon and contrapuntal cyclical spaces are frequent vehicles for enacting or showing transformations, of course, and—to the degree that each of these enactments is individually convincing—uncovering these unexpected connections becomes our primary mode of understanding and enjoying the music.

T onight’s performance and these HD Gimell/Tallis recordings reveal why it’s desirable to have a sampling frequency that is at least 4 times the desired system bandwidth, a process that is known as oversampling. If your goal is to maintain a “flat” response with 6 dB or less roll-off at the upper limit of the band, then a sampling frequency that is more than four times the desired bandwidth is needed—hence, the 176.4 KHz or 192 KHz sampling rates on these Gimell HD Studio Master files.


A  problem (for me, at least) with off-the-shelf HD audio equipment is that the sound reproduction chain (player, preamps, EQ, power amps, speakers) can sometimes have too much high-frequency power. It can sound too sibilant—even for vowel sounds—somewhere between 12 KHz and 20 KHz. The spectrum EQ sliders on your playback equipment may not have center frequencies that correspond to wherever that objectionable tweeter “break-up frequency” peak is—so the adjustments you make to cope with it end up impairing the quality of the sound around that peak, essentially leaving you with a sound that's far less than HD. But Bowers & Wilkins speakers are one example of a product that doesn’t have this issue. They’re clear above 8 KHz, and give smooth mid-range and ample bass. Put two 800 Diamonds in front of you, two 802s behind you, plus a couple of DB1s somewhere in the room to cover the bottom bass frequencies. HD music recordings—such as those produced by Tallis and Gimell—have frequencies that exceed 20 KHz and we need speakers (and other components in the reproduction chain) that can accurately render these. The response of the 800Ds is essentially flat between 25 Hz and 33 KHz. Their tweeter “break-up” frequency is way, way out of harm’s way—at about 70 KHz.

R eproducing high frequencies has everything to do with recreating the sensation of sharpness and immediacy—the experience of being near the sound-source, in or near the front row (see Beranek, p. 511). There is not just the issue of rapid attenuation of high-frequency portions of the spectrum as a function of distance, but also the matter of inter-aural time-difference cues.

W    e found that robust pitch perception can be elicited by harmonic complex tones with fundamental frequencies below 2 KHz, even when all of the individual harmonics are above 6 KHz—well above the currently-accepted ‘existence region’ of pitch and above the currently-accepted limits of neural phase-locking. The results suggest that perception of musical pitch at high frequencies is not constrained by temporal phase-locking in the auditory nerve but may instead stem from higher-level constraints shaped by [immediately] prior exposure to harmonic sounds.”
  —  Andrew Oxenham, Christophe Micheyl, Michael Keebler, Adam Loper & Sébastien Santurette, Dept of Psychology, Univ Minnesota, 2011.

I n other words, our ability to perceive (a) spatial relationships—relative locations of different singers or depth and breadth of other sound-sources—and (b) overtones/harmonics generated by the blending of all of the lower frequencies in ensemble (Fourier spectra of mixed signals) ... depends primarily on the high-frequency (short-wavelength) components and on phase-angle relationships between the frequencies as they mingle with each other in the performance space (or the playback environment, for a recording). If the sound-sources are moving (as in an opera; or even for singers who are shifting or rotating slightly on-stage), then the high-frequency components contribute most to our ability to perceive that motion. It’s part of how our brain sorts out “signal” from “noise” in noisy environments.

A nd we get special pleasure from successfully doing this. Clarity that facilitates the listener’s own brain’s processing—which is what the HD 176 KHz/192 KHz-sampled media does for us (see Vorländer, pp. 222ff).

• Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck - Hodie Christus Natus Est
  
• John Taverner - Magnificat (A5)
  
• Robert White - Tota Pulchra Es
  
• Arvo Pärt - Magnificat
  
• Arvo Pärt - Nunc Dimittis
  
• Hieronymous Praetorius - Magnificat IV
  
• Robert White - Regina Caeli
  
• Morales - Regina Caeli
  
• Benjamin Britten: Hymn to the Virgin
  
• Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina - Magnificat for Double Choir
  
• Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina - Nunc Dimittis for Double Choir

I  very much hope that Phillips and colleagues continue to add aggressively to their HD DVD-Audio recording downloads. There are many of us out here who crave the immersive psychoacoustic experience that only very high sample-rate HD can deliver. The Tallis Scholars’ recordings are [one of the types of—] music that powerfully motivates and intensely satisfies the “immersive HD” desire.

B efore you place an order, Gimell recommmends to try the Test Files they provide for free download, to insure compatibility with your system.

T allis and Gimell recommend using an audiophile-quality Network Music Player to listen to the HD download files. If you own a DVD-Audio player and your PC has a DVD burner, then you can create your own DVD-Audio discs by importing the HD download files into Cirlinca’s DVD-Audio Solo® or other similar software apps. The files are 15 to 18 times larger than the equivalent track with MP3 compression. The Gimell offerings also include multichannel Quadraphonic/Surround Sound formats. Cirlinca’s HD-Audio Solo Ultra® v4.1 software costs just USD$75 for a single-user license— HD-Audio Solo Ultra® is the product that I use. Cirlinca has relationships with record labels including Gimmel, Deutsche Grammophon, and Hyperion, plus orchestras and ensembles including Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and many others.

M arketing-wise, when HD recordings such as these from Tallis/Gimell are coupled with correspondingly good playback chain equipment it opens up a promising (and to-date under-developed) market segment for serious music: tech-avid audiences and software developers and gamers whose primary passion is virtual reality (VR) and who have a strong but decidedly secondary interest in music. Many in this segment or niche market may not be musicians per se, and they may not be people who regularly attend ‘conventional’ live concerts. But they crave excellent VR and immersive “worlds” that can capture the heart and mind—as good music can do so effectively. And such people spend quite a lot of money each year on personal “world-building”. Their sort of passionate “sonic-experience-first-music-second” amateurism is, I suppose, not unlike serious HiFi audiophiles of the 1960s or late 50s.

I n summary, Tallis Scholars and Gimell are creating the right kinds of HD content to grow a VR audio market. Maybe more and different marketing, including social media, will be needed to really drive its growth. For now, I’m delighted to have experienced these wonderful recordings that prove once and for all that very high sampling-rates of 176.4 KHz and 192 KHz are actually necessary, to accurately reproduce the nuances that we hear up-close in live performance. The freshness and lightness and clarity of the sound invite the listener “inside” the world that the music conjures—the Studio Master HD files enable listeners to inhabit that world via interactive replay evoking “live” sensations and realism, most vividly when the listener/file-downloader can freely explore and re-explore again and again ad lib. We avid listeners want to rehearse our neurons—not only to re-experience the shivers up our spines, but (through practice) to train our bodies to optimally respond to the aural cues that are in these beautiful HD recordings, and in the next live performance we’re able to attend. Bravo!

• Tallis Scholars website
  
• Gimell Records website
  
• OnThingsImportant blog (“Tallisman” aka Peter Phillips)
  
• Steve Smith, recording engineer and General Manager, Gimell Records, interview with John Quinn, MusicWebInternational, 2010
  
• Cirlinca HD audio software
  
• Logitech Squeezebox Transporter® SE - Network Music Player
  
• HDtracks.com
  
• Passionato.com
  
• iTrax.com online Forum
  
• Audio Expo North America (AXPONA), 09-12 MAR 2012, Jacksonville, FL
  
• EnjoyTheMusic.com online HD audio Review ezine
  
• Stereophile.com
  
• The Absolute Sound (AVguide.com)
  
• Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Experience Lab at Univ Arizona Tucson
  
• Bowers & Wilkins 800-series speakers (video shows testimonial by pianist Alfred Brendel at 0:26)
  
• B&W brochure pdf [p. 6 shows graphs of conventional aluminum-dome tweeter with 25 dB peak around 30 KHz, vs. B&W tweeter-dome material with smaller peak shifted far-far-right out of range of hearing, beyond 70 KHz]
  
• Sampling Rate page at Wikipedia
  
• DVD-Audio page at Wikipedia
  
• Cirlinca DVD-Audio mastering software
  
• Minnetonka discWelder DVD-Audio mastering software
  
• Steinberg WaveLab DVD-Audio mastering software
  
• Bowers & Wilkins website
  
• NagataAcoustics.co.jp (Yasuhisa Toyota)
  
• JaffeHolden.com (Mark Holden)
  
• KEMAR head-related transfer function measurements at MIT Media Lab
  
• Institute of Acoustics (IOA U.K.)
  
• Acoustical Society of America
  
• BSI EN-60268-4:2010 standard for sound system equipment. British Standards Institute, 2010.
  
• Bartlett B, Bartlett J. On-Location Recording Techniques. Focal, 2006.
  
• Beranek L. Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture. 2e. Springer, 2003.
  
• Chan R, et al. Biomechanics of fundamental frequency regulation: Constitutive modeling of the vocal fold lamina propria. Logop Phoniatr Vocol 2009;34:181-9.
  
• Fastl H, Zwicker E. Psychoacoustics: Facts and Models. 3e. Springer, 2006.
  
• Figuerido R, et al. Incidence of tinnitus in MP3 player users. Braz J Otorhinolaryngol 2011;77:293-8.
  
• Hall R. Review of Lewin 'Musical Form and Transformation.' J Am Mus Soc. 2009;62:205-22.
  
• Honda K, et al. Hypopharyngeal cavities and vocal-tract acoustic modelling. Comput Meth Biomech Biomed Eng 2010;13:443-53. [spectra above 2 KHz]
  
• Klumpenhouwer H. 2006. ‘In Order to Stay Asleep as Observers’: The nature and origins of anti-Cartesianism in Lewin’s generalized musical intervals and transformations. Music Theory Spectrum 2006;28:277–89.
  
• Lamesch S, et al. Phonetograms of laryngeal source parameters for vowels and laryngeal mechanisms of singers. Proc Acoust Soc Am. 2008;123:3243 (Abstract 2pMEe4)
  
• Lamesch S, et al. Frequency jumps during laryngeal mechanism transitions: Influence of vowel, sound pressure level, and starting note. 4th Intl. Physiology and Acoustics of Singing Conference, San Antonio, 2009.
  
• Lewin D. Musical Form and Transformation. Yale Univ, 1993.
  
• Malecki P, Wiciak J. Acoustic parameters of Russian Orthodox vs. Roman Catholic churches: Overview and preliminary psychoacoustic tests using choral music. Proc AES 130th Annual Conf 2011;Abstract 8439.
  
• Monson B, Lotto A, Ternström S. Detection of high-frequency energy changes in sustained vowels produced by singers. J Acoust Soc Am. 2011;129:2263-8.
  
• Oxenham A, et al. Pitch perception beyond the traditional existence region of pitch. PNAS 2011;108:7629-34.
  
• Story M. Suggested explanation for (some of) the audible differences between high sample-rate and conventional sample-rate audio materials. AES, 1997.
  
• Takemoto H, et al. Acoustic analysis of the vocal tract during vowel production by finite-difference time-domain method. J Acoust Soc Am 2010;128:3724-38.
  
• Tsai C, et al. Laryngeal mechanisms during human 4 KHz vocalization studied with CT, videostroboscopy, and color Doppler imaging. J Voice 2008;22:275-82.
  
• Sten Ternström page at Speech, Music, & Hearing Division, School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH (Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan), Stockholm
  
• Ternström S. Hi-Fi voice: Observations on the distribution of energy in the singing voice spectrum above 5 KHz. J Acoust Soc Am. 2008;123:3379.
  
• Ternström S. Hearing myself with others: sound levels in choral performance measured with separation of one's own voice from the rest of the choir. J Voice 1994;8:293-302.
  
• Vorländer M. Auralization: Fundmentals of Acoustics, Modelling, Simulation, Algorithms and Acoustic Virtual Reality. Springer, 2008.
  
• Witzsch J, Fessler H-U. High-resolution-Downloads promise musical enjoyment like listening directly to the mastertapes: Are they able to replace DVD-Audio and SACD? Steroplay, JUL-2009.

Theorbo-Dulcian-Viola Trio: Beautiful Performance; Beautiful Recordings

E arly music trio last night at Deutscherordenkirche Wien was really excellent.

• Katharine Mandl, Fagott / Dulcian
  
• Elzbieta Sajka, Violetta / Viola da braccio
  
• Hermann Platzer, Theorbe

T he program was comprised entirely of 17th Century works.

• Bartolomeo de Selma y Salaverde (1595-1638) - Canzon a due tenori (alto dulcian; viola da braccio; theorbo)
  
• Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger (1580-1648) - Toccata nona und Passacaglia für Theorbe Solo
  
• Adam Jarzębski (1590-1648) - Cantata Giovanni Gabrielli
  
• Selma y Salaverde - Sonata Vestiva i colli für Dulcian Solo (with Theorbo continuo)
  
• Jarzębski - Concerto secondo
  
• Alessandro Piccinini (1566-1638) - Toccata XII, Gagliarda III, und Chiaccona in partite variate für Theorbe Solo
  
• Giovanni Battista Fontana (1571-1630) - Sonata nona
  
• Philipp Friedrich Böddecker (1607-1683) - Sonata “La Monica”

D ulcian is a precursor to the modern bassoon. Ms. Mandl performed on two of them—a smaller alto one, plus a tenor one with a range similar to tenor sax. The trio achieved a fine balance and blending of the timbres of dulcian, 5-stringed violetta / viola da braccio, and theorbo (lute).

T he dulcian part in the Böddecker is amazingly ornate and fast—performed over a languid dotted-quarter/eighth/quarter/quarter viola melody, accompanied by the theorbo continuo. The neume-like notation (which Ms. Mandl explained and illustrated in her pre-performance talk) is prolifically dense in its own right; however, the improvisational cadenzas that Mandl applied took this far beyond the densely-notated score. Truly virtuosic bassoon—on this tender, very old instrument.

T he sanctuary at Deutschordenkirche is small and narrow—only about 10 meters wide. The consort last night positioned themselves near the altar, in a 60° circular-segment arrangement with chairs separated by about 1.5m. They recorded the performance using a Roland EDIROL R-44 4-channel digital recorder and two Schoeps MK-21 condenser microphones on a mic stand elevated 2.0m above the floor and angled downward 10° so that the mic axis of the left mic was midway between the dulcian and viola seats and the mic axis of the right mic was midway between the viola and theorbo seats. This distance to the instruments is a good compromise for these pieces—enough separation and directivity for the solo passages and appropriate lower-directivity for the tutti playing, so the listener’s attention is not confronted by unnatural left-right contrasts.

T he wide off-axis response of this mic helps to blend adjacent instruments and enhance ensemble-ness. The 48-volt phantom-power Schoeps CMC-6 preamps (matched pair; one on each mic) are designed to be compatible with really long mic cables—as was the case last night with the EDIROL R-44 placed at one side of the sanctuary. The R-44 uses multi-gigabyte miniature camera-type SD cards or larger-capacity SDHC cards as the recording media and offers 24-bit wide A-to-D conversion and sampling frequencies (44.1KHz/48KHz/88.2KHz/96KHz/192KHz).

T he MK-21 Schoeps mics have a ‘subcardioid’ (wide cardioid) pattern—moderately high directionality and pretty flat frequency response. A pair of them currently costs about USD$3,500 new, and the R-44 is currently under USD$1,000. Mr. Platzer and Ms. Mandl easily set all the mics and recording equipment up within just two or three minutes before the program commenced, switched the EDIROL on, and so began the group’s performance: no muss, no fuss.

W e eagerly purchased 3 of the CDs that were available at last night’s performance (recordings made in 2007, 2009, and 2010, in Deutschordenkirche—which you can order off the group’s website [link below]). The sound imaging that they achieve with these nice mics and this set-up is phenomenally warm and detailed… heartily to be recommended to other early music groups who wish to capture high-quality sound of period instruments without tremendous worry or logistical troubles.

B ravo, for the live performance and for these excellent recordings!

• Pandolfis Consort Wien website
  
• Piccini Chiaccona score at IMSLP
  
• Facsimile scores for 16th and 17th Century dulcian compositions at Dulcians.org (Hans Mons)
  
• Schoeps wide-cardioid mikes
  
• Roland EDIROL R-44 4-channel digital recorder
  
• Deutscherordenkirche Wien

Remembering Peter and Lorraine Lieberson: True Love as a Practice for Awakening the Heart

O    ihr Zärtlichen, tretet zuweilen
in den Atem, der euch nicht meint,
laßt ihn an eueren Wangen sich teilen,
hinter euch zittert er, wieder vereint.

O ihr Seligen, O ihr Heilen,
die ihr der Anfang der Herzen scheint.
Bogen der Pfeile und Ziele von Pfeilen,
ewiger glänzt euer Lächeln verweint.

Fürchtet euch nicht zu leiden, die Schwere,
gebt sie zurück an der Erde Gewicht;
schwer sind die Berge, schwer sind die Meere.

Selbst die als Kinder ihr pflanztet, die Bäume,
wurden zu schwer längst ; ihr trüget sie nicht.
Aber die Lüfte ... aber die Räume ...

[O you Tender Ones, you will walk, persisting
Through the cold breath that was not breathed for your sake,
Your heedless cheeks oblivious to its trembling.
Blowing as it does, the wind coalesces behind you after you've passed, without trace.

O Blessed Ones, healthy and whole though you be now,
Who seem to be enveloped and self-sufficient, the epitome of life and the heart's beginning.
Bows are there for each conceivable arrow and a target for all arrows:
Logical correlates of the perpetual brilliance of your pulsatile smile.

Fear not the pain and sorrow and stillness that will inevitably come,
Consign all of that back to the heavy Earth who knows good and well what to do with it:
Heavy are the mountains, heavy the seas.

Even as a child, you planted these trees:
Already they are awfully heavy, beyond belief really.
Despite this persists the pervasive space ... the ubiquitous breezes ...]”
  —  Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, VI.

P eter Lieberson died of sepsis, a complication of his lymphoma and treatment for lymphoma last Saturday, at age 64. Lieberson gratified our ears not only with composerly talent but with a humor and warm personality that do not require atmospheric ‘soft-focus’ photos like the one above to convey the inner gentleness.

P eter’s wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, died of breast cancer at age 52, in 2006. She was a mezzo-soprano, known for her dramatic power and raw virtuosity as well as her artistry performing Baroque era and new compositions. Her career path to becoming a singer was unconventional. Formerly a professional violist, Lieberson changed her full-time focus to singing when she was around 30 (1985 and beyond). As violist she played in the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music in Boston under conductor Craig Smith and later sang in the chorus. For a time, she was also principal viola in Berkeley Symphony.

I n re-listening to recordings I have of Peter’s later compositions, Lorraine’s influence on Peter’s soul and heart becomes evident… how she provided him with insights and renewal. This is an undeniable element in Peter’s writing after 1997. Lorraine’s influence is diaphoric, trans-illuminating—an emblem of spirit-in-matter. Must be why he fell in love with her… good reason why anyone would fall in love with anyone.


    [50-sec clip, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson & Peter Serkin, Peter Lieberson, ‘Rilke Songs’, ‘O, ihr Zärtlichen’, 1.6MB MP3]

L ieberson was expert at syllabic setting and pitch repetition: the vocal part centers on particular notes for considerable proportions of passages. These songs are predominantly recitative. They have suspended accompaniment and rubato manifestations of the singing part.

W   hen I was growing up, my mother, whose first language was German, would often quote lines from Rilke. I have been drawn to his poetry ever since. Rilke evokes feelings, states of being that are at the edge of awareness, mysterious but close to the heart. One can’t always understand exactly what he means. I believe this is a deliberate elusiveness in order to provoke our intuition. The Rilke Songs were written for my wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. I think of them as love songs even though the poems themselves are not overtly about love. They are about being childlike and open in ‘O ihr Zärtlichen’; in ‘Atmen, du unsichtbares Gedicht!,’ they are about the breath being a complete exchange between our own essence and the universe. They are about how the breath seems to go out into space like our wandering son; the mysterious way in which we might transform ourselves: ‘If drinking is bitter, turn yourself into wine’ (‘Stiller Freund’). To me these Rilkean insights are a gift of love..”
  —  Peter Lieberson, program notes.

K atherine Kelton maintains that Peter Lieberson “learned about the complexity of the human voice and the multitude of intricacies of which it is capable” through Lorraine. “Much as Robert Schumann’s love for Clara Wieck inspired him to compose in a genre he had previously disregarded,” so too Lorraine propelled Peter in directions that were, up to then, unfamiliar.

M aybe this is so; maybe a ‘push’ theory is right.

B ut it is also possible (and, I think, more likely) that it was a matter of ‘pull’, of natural attraction. In fact, it is hardly plausible that the diverse nuances of the voice could have been novel for Peter in 1997. If anything, his many years leading Shambhala sessions led him to develop acute sensitivity to myriad manifestations of ego/self and selflessness. And there was Lorraine, an eager collaborator, able to animate a composition so as to lead to discoveries for both, on the part of both.

L orraine’s performances of Peter’s compositions evoke what Mircea Eliade once called ‘dialectique du sacre’ and ‘hierophanies’. Sacred portrayal is realized as an individual creative act—one that embodies both spiritual insight and sensual perception. The relationship ceases to be merely ‘of-the-world’. It achieves transcendence, a dimension of sacredness. That, I believe, is what we hear in these wonderful recordings. The feeling conveyed is one of consummate ‘hereness’, ‘thisness’—a kind of presence, of living entirely in the present.

I    think of my Rilke Songs as love songs even though they are not overtly about love. They are, for example, about being child-like and open, as in “O ihr Zärtlichen;” about the breath being a complete exchange of our own essence with the universe in “Atmen, du unsichtbares Gedicht;” about the mysterious ways in which we might transform ourselves in “Stiller Freund” . . . To me, these Rilkean insights are gifts of love.”
  — Peter Lieberson, program notes to ‘Rilke Songs’.

T   he act of singing... when my voice is feeling free and soaring... it is a wonderful, healing experience.”
  — Lorraine Hunt, interview with Terry Gross, NPR, 1996.

T    he spelling sgra bla (‘la of sound’) found in the ancient texts as a matter of fact is based on a very deep principle characteristic of the most authentic Bön tradition. Sound, albeit not visible, can be perceived through the sense of hearing and used as a means of communication, and is in fact linked to the cha (the individual’s positive force, the base of prosperity), wang tang (ascendancy-capacity), and all the other aspects of a person’s energy, aspects that are directly related with the protective deities and entities that every person has from birth. Moreover, sound is considered the foremost connection between the individual himself and his la.”
  —  Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, Drung De’u and Bön, translated by Adriano Clemente, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1995, p. 61.

T o me, Peter Lieberson’s later compositions embody Shambhala texts that reveal and test our relationship to the “material world” and our sense perceptions. They teach the practice of enriching presence—the ability to instantly envision the inner wealth within oneself.

T   o compose ‘Neruda Songs’, I responded to the words and to the emotional tone of the poem. I heard notes when I read the words. Generally I like the tactile feeling, the sensual feeling of being at the piano, so I compose there. I listen very, very carefully to the words, and the harmony is very intuitive. The great period of jazz, that’s how I learned harmony, Bill Evans and Miles Davis. That was my ear training. Orchestrations come easily to me, and I often hear which instrument should be playing. It’s constant responsiveness; it’s somewhere between improvising and strategizing.”
  —  Peter Lieberson, interview with Pierre Ruhe, 10-JUN-2010.

T here is, to me, a cinematic quality to the songs—as though the composer were a cameraman.

C amera placement distinctly influences our perception of the world that’s portrayed and the characters in it. Shooting down at a seated character can diminish her presence and stature; it may make her seem submissive or even supplicative. Filming up at a character provides a sense of the figure’s power and command. By contrast, in Rilke Songs it is as if Peter Lieberson’s ‘camera’ is placed at eye-level, making the perspective like what we would see while sitting across from Lorraine having a conversation. The character isn’t ‘owned’ by the camera/cameraperson nor is she sensationalized by it.

C    ombien qu'a nous soit cause le Soleil
Que toute chose est tresclerement veue:
Ce neantmoins pour trop arrester l'œil
En sa splendeur lon pert soubdain la veue.
Mon ame ainsi de son objiect pourueue
De tous mes sens me rend abandonné,
Comme si lors en moy tout estonné
Semeles fust en presence rauie
De son Amant de fouldre enuironné
Qui luy ostast par ses esclaires la vie.

[Much as the Sun causes each thing
To lie so clearly before our eyes:
To linger too long in its splendor
Is to be suddenly made blind.
My soul and its object
Now abandoned by all my senses,
As if, within me, and to my great surprise
Semele were ravished in my presence
By her Lover [Zeus] who, with his thunderbolts,
Snatched her life in a flash of light.]”
  —  Maurice Scève, Délie, v.443.

T here is an interview that Lorraine did with NPR’s Terry Gross back in 1996, in which Lorraine confides her fascination with identity-bending, gender-bending roles—the journeys of self-discovery and transcendence that are made possible through these. Beyond angle, camera placement also affects the view that we have onto the action and the resultant meaning we can derive from a shot. On the surface, the Rilke Songs setting of several Rilke poems celebrate the then-undersung life and burgeoning talent of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. That her belated decampment from viola to singing was what vaulted her to international fame was an oddity: here was the soul and and the propensities of a string player inhabiting an operatic singer’s body.

P eter leveraged Lorraine’s enthusiasm for transcendent experiences to honor her. In Rilke Songs, it is as though composer Peter were a filmmaker choosing to shoot in a long profile ‘take’. The placement of the voice-leading/camera here and the accompaniment there; the choice to let the ‘shot’ play out as it does; these reveal the nuanced components, not only of composition but of microphone placement and physicality that Lorraine so deftly crafted in the use of her vocal instrument. No other ‘camera’ position and mic position could have permitted such insight into her craft, nor into the craft of the composer who created this vehicle for shared expression.

E   very 24-hour day is a tremendous gift to us. So we all should learn to live in a way that makes joy and happiness possible. The first miracle of mindfulness is our true presence—being here, present, totally alive. If you are really here, the other will also be here. Loving? It is recognizing the presence of the other with your love... Dear One, I am here for you... A human tendency is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement—the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty. The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality.”
  — Thich Nhat Hanh.

N o atmospherics or sentimentality in this long ‘take’. Her delivery is straightforward and expository, articulated calmly and directly to the listener. Knowing as we do that these performances were sung—the compositions were composed—when Lorraine was already afflicted by breast cancer, the récits produce a kind of uncanniness; produce narrative convergences between Peter and Lorraine; they embody a tantric, elliptical concentration; they are an Unheimlichkeit, a Verklärung, eine Vorahnung.

T hese wonderful specimens of humankind will be deeply missed.

• Culshaw P. Heartbreak of a lover’s last songs. The Telegraph, 18-JAN-2007.
  
• Gurian M. Love's Journey: The Seasons & Stages of a Relationship. Shambhala, 2001.
  
• Hanh T. True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart. Shambhala, 2006.
  
• Kelton K. Review. American Music 2010;28:257-60.
  
• Levey J. Technique & evolution in Peter Lieberson’s ‘Three Songs’ and ‘Rilke Songs’. PhD Dissertation, Univ Michigan, 2009.
  
• Lieberson L. Peter Lieberson 'Neruda Songs'. (Trumpet Swan, 2006.)
  
• Lieberson L, et al. Peter Lieberson: Rilke Songs; The Six Realms; Horn Concerto. (Bridge, 2006.)
  
• Lieberson P. Concept becomes experience. Shambhala Sun, MAY-1997.
  
• Miller A, ed. Right Here with You: Bringing Mindful Awareness into Our Relationships. Shambhala, 2011.
  
• Perez-Gomez A. Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics. MIT, 2008. [esp. Part II passages about music as architecture]
  
• Rilke R. Sonnets to Orpheus. Furtak R, tr. Univ Scranton, 2008.
  
• Rilke R. Sonnets to Orpheus. Barnston W, tr. Shambhala, 2004.
  
• Rilke R. Sonnets to Orpheus. Snow E, tr. North Point, 2005.
  
• Rilke R. Sonnets to Orpheus. Mitchell S, tr. Vintage, 2009.
  
• Ross A. For Peter Lieberson. TheRestIsNoise, 23-APR-2011.
  
• Serkin P, et al. Peter Lieberson: Red Garuda, Rilke Songs, Bagatelles, Piano Quintet. (Bridge, 2010.)
  
• Sieburth R, tr. Emblems of Desire: Selections from the Délie of Maurice Scève. Univ Pennsylvania, 2002.
  
• Tripurari B. Aesthetic Vedanta : The Sacred Path of Passionate Love. Mandala, 1998.
  
• Trungpa C. Cutting through Spiritual Materialism. Shambhala, 2008.
  
• Trungpa C. Journey without Goal. Shambhala, 2000.
  
• Trungpa C. The Truth of Suffering and the Path of Liberation. Shambhala, 2010.
  
• Woolfe Z. Peter Lieberson, composer inspired by Buddhism, dies at 64. 23-APR-2011.
  
• Tricycle magazine
  
• Surviving Sepsis Campaign

• The Heart of Warriorship
  
• Level I: The Art of Being Human
  
• Level II: Birth of the Warrior
  
• Level III: Warrior in the World
  
• Level IV: Awakened Heart
  
• Level V: Open Sky
  
  
• The Sacred Path
  
• Great Eastern Sun
  
• Windhorse
  
• Drala
  
• Meek
  
• Perky
  
• Outrageous and Inscrutable
  
• Golden Key

Tallis Scholars, Notes on Remembrances, Riding

T    he oxymoron ‘aural image’ highlights the special nature of musical ‘exemplarity’ and notational representation. Notated music examples are doubly distant from the aural phenomena that they represent: the notation stands for sound, but, excised and framed as example, points back to a presumed whole that it represents (synechdoche) and also forward from the new discourse of which it becomes a part... In moving from an analogical mode to an iconic one, the example itself becomes exemplar—inducing an imitative realization on the part of the audience.”
  —  Cristle Collins Judd, Reading Renaissance Music Theory, p. 5.

C oncerts like the one that Tallis Scholars presented in Kansas City last night reconstitute iconic ‘things’ in their own likeness, by encompassing them as examples.

A s Cristle Collins Judd (Dean for Academic Affairs & Prof of Music Theory at Bowdoin) has written, examples are inherently ‘dependent texts’: they occur in the context of other/larger texts or discourses, which provide the framework by which we understand them and systematize them and recognize them and remember them.

T he holiday season and concerts that are performed during the holiday season are meta-exemplary? They abound in the recognizable. They leverage both tradition and memory to work their magic. As ‘exemplary’, they bring what’s ‘outside’ into the ‘inside’—inside the texts/discourses that they enlarge and annotate and illuminate as we listen and participate in the spell that’s being cast...

T here are, of course, discontinuities and rhetorical processes that aren’t discursive. The music; the program notes for the Tallis performance; the snippets of rendered music notation that we are able to review, etc.—are extreme in their ability to simultaneously provide streams of visual imagery and sonic stimuli along with the unfolding ‘text’.

W e delight in Josquin’s 6 usual Marian tropes—the delight made juicier by our knowledge that the Missa de beata virgine was later piously excised in the 22nd session of the Council of Trent, in 1562-1563.

I s my reveling at papal pique and Counter-Reformation vanity so wrong?

O h, the final cadences, enriched with thirds that Josquin did not put there. The mensuration of transitions resolved to clean, clear ‘sesquialtera’ completions that were not Josquin’s. The final notes’ durations lengthened or more notes added to tidy it up. Bare spots filled-in. ‘Tis a thing now of even greater beauty than it were in Josquin’s day...

I  need to go to library and check out a copy of Sherr’s wonderful book (link below).

T his Tallis Josquin has got to be the most beautiful version of the Kyrie and Sanctus I have ever heard! Tallis’s Missa de beata virgine is a scholarly version, not a vehement or sentimental or valedictory one. I find the Tallis Scholars’ approach brings a new freshness to the piece that I can’t help but prefer. In particular, the soprano, countertenor, and alto parts have a lovely tone and some soul-stirring melodies above the lower voices. The friendly acoustics of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception lends extra warmth to the endeavor.

P hillips’s conducting—and the responsiveness of the ensemble to his direction—are the causes of the vibrancy and freshness. And just watch! The ‘vibrancy’ is explicit, demanded by Phillips’s hand gestures on many downbeats and on fermatas. So besides the notation and the ‘aural image’, we have the visual image of the conductor and the choir...

P hillips’s hands extend outward from his waist, oscillating in a diminuendo—the amplitude of the hand vibrations decays from 2 centimeters, peak-to-peak, to zero centimeters over a period of a second or so. The waveshape of the gestural decay is approximately exponential each time, with a time constant 1/λ equal to about 200 milliseconds. He does this throughout the performance; it is clearly a core idiom of Phillips’s personal conducting language.


   A(t) = A₀exp(-λt)

T his is not a ‘bouncy’ gesture. Instead, it suggests exquisite ‘tautness’, controlled impulsion—an equine sort of ‘puissance’ being brought gracefully to rest. It reminds me specifically of a manner of applying ‘leg aids’ to the flanks of your horse when you are bringing your horse to an elegant halt in the dressage ring.

W hat I mean to say is, this choral ensemble ‘animal’ loves its work, and it aims to utterly please. And the choral ‘rider’ [Phillips] loves the suppleness and compliance he finds in the animal, and his subsequent hand ‘aids’ generously adapt to the eager suppleness that’s displayed by the animal.

W hat we see and hear, then, is this sublime unity of the joy of conducting and the joy of singing, the joys of riding and of being ridden. Spirituality through innocent, virtuosic carnality. Maybe that’s what the Council of Trent was worried about.

A    usterity, logic, and Josquin’s complete command of compositional form and contrapuntal symmetry permeate [Missa de beata virgine], suggesting a purity of conception meant to please God in its perfection—not excite the passions of men and women.”
  —  Peter Phillips, Tallis Scholars Programme Notes, 10-DEC-2009.

• Tallis Scholars website
  
• Peter Phillips website
  
• Choral conducting books at Singers.com
  
• Tallis Scholars Christmas. (Gimell, 2003.)
  
• Tallis Scholars. Josquin: Missa sine nomine; Missa ad fugam. (Gimell, 2008.)
  
• Gangwere B. Music History During the Renaissance Period, 1520-1550: A Documented Chronology. Praeger, 2004.
  
• Gelley A. Unruly Example: On the Rhetoric of Exemplarity. Stanford Univ, 1995.
  
• Harr J. The Science and Art of Renaissance Music. Princeton Univ, 1998.
  
• Judd C. Reading Renaissance Music Theory: Hearing with the Eyes. Cambridge Univ, 2006.
  
• Cristle Collins Judd page at Bowdoin
  
• Monson C. The Council of Trent revisited. J Am Musicol Soc 2002;55:1-37.
  
• Craig Monson page at Wash U.
  
• Sherr R, ed. The Josquin Companion. Oxford Univ, 2001.
  
• Sparks E. The Music of Noel Bauldeweyn. AMS, 1972. Pp. 40-1.
  
• Missa de Beata Virgine page at Wikipedia
  
• Bicinium scores