Through a repertoire of Consort Songs for five violas and countertenor, the Celadon Ensemble tries to underline the obvious artistic connections between the music of English Renaissance and contemporary music. This parentage, this harmonic, rhythmic and poetic logic, opens a whole field of exploration into sound identity and tradition. How have such seemingly different composers, belonging to remote eras, dealt with timbre fusion in a similar way, with the same desire to deeply affect, to create a full-bodied sound, both powerful and soothing? The two eras are not placed in opposition for this concert, as Michael Nyman’s music arises naturally from that of his predecessors; on the contrary, it is a clever mix of genres that points out to surprising similarities between these works: we could easily believe that Tye’s ‘Sit Fast’ was composed very recently. From one century to the next, we face a testimony brought to song by the timbre of a countertenor, the intensity of a violas consort that carries a certain magic, the paradoxical expression of a voice which is solitary but also becomes a sixth instrument- one of the violas.
