Sequentia spins a medieval German saga for Music Before 1800
Early music concerts are a form of time travel. With “Gregorius—The Holy Sinner,” Music Before 1800 transported the audience to medieval Germany on Sunday afternoon at Manhattan’s Corpus Christi Church. The guide was Sequentia, the innovative ensemble for medieval music co-founded by Benjamin Bagby and the late Barbara Thornton in 1977.
Gregorius is an epic poem by Hartmann von Aue, of whom little is known, except that he was a well-educated Swabian knight conversant in French and Latin. Active in the early decades of the thirteenth century, Hartmann is one of the best-known poets of the German Middle Ages and the author of epics dealing with the ideals of courtly love or the Crusades.
Gregorius is the story of a nobleman from Aquitaine who is the child of an incestuous relationship between brother and sister. The baby is put out to sea in a small boat with gold and a note detailing his aristocratic parentage but survives and thrives. In late adolescence, Gregorius learns the story of his birth and sets off to lead a life of chivalry to atone for his parents’ sins.
The young knight comes to the aid of a noblewoman, whose lands are besieged, and subsequently marries her, only to learn that she is his mother, aunt, and wife. For seventeen years, they atone for their sins, Gregorius chained to a rock in the sea. Two elderly clergymen search him out, having had a shared vision that the next pope will be found upon a rock in Aquitaine. In Rome, mother and son are reunited and live out their days in peace.
Epic poems were intended to be performed by minstrels as courtly entertainment. Gregorius exists in several manuscripts, but the music does not. Sequentia reconstructed it based on extant sources, including works by the Minnesinger Heinrich von Meissen, Meister Alexander, a wandering minstrel active in the mid-thirteenth century, and other itinerant Spruchdicter, who performed Middle High German sung verse.
Seqentia’s reconstruction is for three singers, two of whom play Romanesque harps. The performers were Bagby, Jasmina Črnčič, and lieken. Črnčič, a Slovenian singer who specializes in medieval music, sang and played harp, as did Bagby. leiken is a Brooklyn-based singer and performance maker who focuses on both medieval and new music.
The performance was sung in Middle High German with English texts projected on a screen behind the performers. There were neither sets nor props, and the performers did not wear period costumes. Musicianship and communicative skills alone sufficed to transport the listener back in time.
The poem was set in a variety of styles, ranging from simple declarations on pitches and chant-like settings to more melodic passages. Most impressive was the singers’ uniform ease of vocal production. They sang effortlessly, producing full-bodied sounds that were essentially of another time and world.
The harp accompaniment was sparse and delicate. Interludes served to propel the story forward or provided room for reflection. The latter, whether solos or duets, were often transfixing virtuosic displays.
The story was divided among the three singers, with Bagby providing most of the narration and creating characters, such as the abbot and fisherman. Older than either Črnčič or leiken, Bagby used this card to instill wisdom and a wry sense of humor into the story. His voice was capable of quicksilver turns of color and emotion. Through little more than a twinkle in his eye, he expressed the absurdities inherent in the tale with a winning combination of earnestness and irony.
To Črnčič fell the task of creating the complex character of the woman who was Gregorius’s mother, aunt, and wife. Her voice was the most ethereal and mellifluous of the three, although it never lacked weight and depth.
leiken’s voice has those same qualities but is more earthbound. He rose to heroic heights, his voice full and bold, as the young Gregorius set out to right the world. As the Holy Sinner matured and evolved, so leiken’s voice gained in gravitas. He, like Bagby, was quick to sense and subtly express the humor in the poem.
Lasting well over an hour and a half, time was all but suspended until the final, joyous unison“Amen” was sung. It was a testament to the three performers’ abilities as musical storytellers and those of a master medieval weaver of tales.
Holger Falk and Merzouga perform “Il Gondoliere Veneziano” at Corpus Christi Church, 4 p.m., February 9. mb1800.org