Ties of art, music inspire vocal ensemble

May 02, 2008 10:44 am

— By Scott Meeker
smeeker@joplinglobe.com
When he thinks of the music performed by the chapel choirs of the Renaissance, Alexander Blachly imagines Donatello’s statue of David.
Its black, polished surface and flawless proportions are the equivalent of how he believes the music should sound.
“For me, (the statue) has somehow been a model for the whole period,” said Blachly, the founder and conductor of Pomerium.
The music of that period will be highlighted when the 14-voice a cappella ensemble performs Monday at St. Peter’s Catholic Church, 812 S. Pearl Ave. The Pro Musica program will begin with a lecture at 7 p.m., with the concert starting at approximately 7:45 p.m.
Pomerium was formed 36 years ago with the intent of bringing a sense of authenticity to the music of the Renaissance.
“There weren’t many ensembles doing the music that we do,” said Blachly. “I wasn’t convinced by the way they were doing it. It felt as if there was something missing in the interpretation and the way the pieces ended up sounding. They weren’t comparable to the arts of the period.
“Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper,’ Michelangelo’s ‘David’ or the Sistine Chapel ... these were monuments of the Renaissance and everyone considers them to be high points of our civilization, but the music sounded pretty paltry by comparison.”
Through Pomerium, Blachly said he worked to explore the repertoire and experiment with different approaches.
As there are very few written descriptions of the music from that era, Blachly said much of the work centered on perfecting the tone of the group’s vocals, and making sure the sound was properly proportioned. Pomerium also adopted a system of just intonation — a system of tuning not widely practiced in modern music, he said, that uses pure thirds and intervals.
“It was a revelation,” Blachly said. “We have really studied this system of tuning. We have no instruments to tell us where the pitches are, but we’ve trained our ears to recognize when we’re singing in tune.”
The ultimate goal, he said, is to bring the music to life in such a way that the listener would be as awestruck as when they step into the Sistine Chapel.
“It’s an immediate response that people have to the architecture and the ceiling paintings,” he said. “I thought that there must be a way for the music to have the same impact.”
The music for the Pro Musica program will focus exclusively on pieces written between 1503 and 1543 — the period during which Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel.
“The reason we know this music was performed in that period is that it comes from dated manuscripts housed in the chapel library,” Blachly said.
“The thing that’s fascinating for us to mull over is to imagine that Michelangelo was up on the scaffold painting the ceiling, while the choir was on the floor rehearsing. Potentially, he was hearing the music while painting, and they were seeing the painting while composing the music.
“Music really is the counterpart of these great paintings. For us, the challenge is to make it sound that way.”
Prior to the concert, Blachly will present a lecture and slides that will show the chapel and its ceiling, images of the manuscripts and other details that will help set the music in the context that it was created and performed.
Admission to the concert is free and open to the public, though donations are appreciated.
Details: 625-1822 or www.promusicajoplin.org

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