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Early-music Group Back in New World, with Beautiful Results
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San Antonio Express-News, Early-music Group Back in New World, with Beautiful Results >>
Between 1996 and 1999, the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble meticulously researched and recorded three extraordinary albums of early sacred music from cathedral archives in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. The group of seven musician-singers then shifted its focus to ancient Middle Eastern music, which led to the 2002 recording "Ancient Echoes."
Last month, SAVAE returned to the 17th- and 18th-century New World with the release of its hauntingly beautiful recording, "La Noche Buena," which re-creates the earliest Christmas music of the Americas.
Sunday afternoon at the Institute of Texan Cultures, the ensemble presented its first full concert of material from that album to a large, enthusiastic audience. In addition to being the official introduction of the CD, it marked the opening of "Animal Spirits and Warrior Kings," the institute's new exhibit of pre-Columbian art.
Offered with keen musicianship and the radiant blend that has become SAVAE's trademark, the songs were enhanced with all manner of authentic percussion instruments — rattles, drums, tuned stones and the like — along with recorders, guitar, harp and synthesized organ.
To appeal to converted indigenous peoples, colonial period chapel masters often used folk music and dialects for their compositions, adding sacred texts. In that spirit, Sunday's program included Nahuatl verses with Tlaxcalan rhythms, Portuguese texts with Latin rhythms or Spanish villancicos that had been sung by African freedmen living in Mexico.
"Serenissima una noche" is just that, opening with serene legato lines until it shifts to rhythmic polyphony that invites its listeners to "step to the dance." The hypnotic "Asi andano," about the impending Virgin birth, was as fascinating to watch as to hear, with its accompanying drums, recorders or antlers being tapped with a stick.
Other intriguing scores were a Bolivian negrilla, traditionally sung by Africans, and a lively Afro-Caribbean guaracha from Mexico, whose rhythms are best known today as Cuban.
Sunday's concert also involved a brief exercise in audience interaction: The audience sang a simple Nahuatl tune from a printed handout while volunteers "assisted" with five very different rhythms and instruments. It was a cursory, yet instructive, glimpse into the complexities encountered by these exceptional musical archaeologists.
-Diane Windeler 12/13/05 >> go there
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