THE SACRED BRIDGE
Joel Cohen, director of the Camerata, is well-known not only for his musical scholarship but for his refreshing approach to programming. The concert (whose title is derived from the late Eric Werner’s pioneering study of Jewish and Christian liturgical music) was not only an intriguing showcase of rarely heard music but an engaging exploration of boundaries–those between cultures, and those between performers and their audiences.
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Another boundary explored was that of time, since music separated from us by 2,000 years can be very nearly inaccessible. Certainly the music that was never written down–that passed from one person to another through oral tradition–can be considered lost forever. With other pieces, texts are the only remaining evidence that they ever existed. Even music that comes down to us in notated form and is ostensibly performable can present challenges, for if it’s old enough there will be no one left who knows how to read it. Short of inventing a time machine that allows us to go back and hear an actual medieval performance in progress, such music often remains an enigma.
The Camerata achieves the fine balance of scholarship and informed conjecture required in a convincing performance of medieval music. The touring ensemble consists of only five performers–soprano Anne Azema, baritone Daniel McCabe, Jesse Lepkoff on recorder and flutes, Carol Lewis on vielle, and Cohen singing and playing oriental lute. Yet with these spare forces the Camerata is able to cover a period stretching from the time of Jesus (two identical psalm tunes, one in Latin and one in Hebrew) to the 18th century (a catchy circumcision song by Carpentras).
It was such attention to words, combined with intelligently improvised accompaniments, that really brought this ancient music to life. Instrumentalists Lepkoff and Lewis, along with Cohen, created a credible version of the sound world one might have experienced two millennia ago. The careful attention Azema and McCabe gave to their expression of the texts helped communicate the spirit of the music.
