I ran into something last night that I thought was interesting in light of
the discussion we've been having here on historically informed performance
practice and straight tone. My husband, who has this weird non-musician
thing about medieval music, was cruising Napster and ran across a group
called "The Mediaeval Baebes" (I love that name). It's an English group
that ranges in size from 10-12 women, of whom, from their biographies, only
one has any extensive formal musical training. It looked like most of them
come from a rock and/or performance art background. I'm not sure how
authentic their music is, but the titles I recognized (which were not many)
were all medieval.
While there are things about their recordings that I can quibble over -
like really impure vowels - I found their vocal color more interesting than
the academically pure straight tone gang. There was a freshness in their
approach and a sense of spontaneity that I really liked. Usually when I
hear a group doing that kind of music, I always see them standing in a very
controlled grouping and not moving much and being very, very serious about
the music. This group sounded like they were having fun.
I've always had a sneaking suspicion that really early music was a good bit
more fun than we were allowed to believe in freshman music history, and I
found that in this group's performances. Now, if they can just get those
vowels right...
Lee Morgan
Mezzo soprano
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