Concert Review of Slavic Holiday
Rose Ensemble Celebrates Holidays in Harmony
By Samuel Black, Duluth News-Tribune
December 21, 2001
Last night the Rose Ensemble for Early and New Music created a hypnotizing spell of music and legends from Renaissance Poland and Bohemia. Nearly 300 people filled the Sacred Heart Music Center for this choral holiday concert. All went home amazed at the creativity of the legends and stunning technique of the ensemble.
"Slavic Holiday" featured narrative legends of St. Ludmilla, St. Wenceslaus, St. Stanislaus, St. Adalbert and Barbara Radziwill. Daniel Necas from the Immigration Research Center at the University of Minnesota was liltingly clear as he shared stories from the past. Over the past few years he has been involved in researching and making fresh translations of these legends.
After each reading, the ensemble sang music related to the specific saint. Most of this music would be readily identified as plainsong. That means only a single musical line exists in the manuscripts. Often the ensemble created additional parts, keeping with the style of singing in the early Renaissance. Sounds of the 12th through the 16th centuries are decidedly ancient to modern ears.
Jordan Sramek, Duluth native and founder/director of the Rose Ensemble, has created a musical jewel. If five men are singing together, the audience hears the uniformity of a single voice. When all 12 singers are singing the same melody, the audience was occasionally blessed with extra notes coming from the walls of Sacred Heart. These overtones are a musical reward for singers truly in tune with each other.
Sometimes the women sang alone, sometimes the men, and a few times the entire ensemble filled the room. Special guest Ginna Watson played her vielle (a Renaissance ancestor of the violin) on many of the selections. Her plaintive melodies tied together the various verses sung. Stories in song were passed back and forth between the sections, sharing legends of these medieval saints, heroes and heroines.
Latin, Polish, Czech and English languages echoed magnificently around the stone walls of the restored church. Over and over the voices crossed each other, produced musical tension, then resolved into sensationally pure notes that trailed off into silence. Two of the selections spread out into multiple parts and 12 voices expanded from one end to the other. One hymn, "In te Domine Speravi," was a newly created anthem by Minneapolis composer Arthur Maud. This richly textured piece shifted from Latin to English, and allowed the ensemble to highlight its ability to sing music in many parts while keeping a very warm sense of hopefulness at its center.
The evening's music was quite specific. I do not know what others were expecting, but I hope they went home with a mystical feeling about human voices being lifted gloriously together. The music if the Renaissance in Eastern Europe may seem far away, but it came to Duluth last night. Each year the Rose Ensemble performs once or twice in Duluth. Their special combination of singing ancient music exceptionally well is worth hearing. Listening to 12 beautiful voices create a nearly perfect blended sound certainly deepens our understanding of ancient music. The Rose Ensemble will be back in spring 2002. So will I.