Pilgrimage: Musical Journey of Kryštof Harant to Jerusalem / circa 1600. Cappella Mariana, Constantinople. Supraphon (SU 4350-2). Total time 1:15.
DIGITAL REVIEW — In this time of deep division in our society, any project focused on unity feels like a gift. Although the music on Pilgrimage: Musical Journey of Kryštof Harant to Jerusalem / circa 1600 is almost 500 years old, the album’s message of cross-cultural parallels and joyous interaction is a needed balm today.
Vojtěch Semerád, artistic director of the Czech vocal ensemble Cappella Mariana, decided in 2018 to create a project around Czech diplomat, activist, writer, and composer Kryštof Harant, who was executed in 1621 for his role in the Bohemian uprising against the Habsburgs. Because Harant left behind only three complete musical works — a Mass and two motets — Semerád came up with an imaginative way to fill out the album. Inspired by Harant’s travelogue about his pilgrimage through the Middle East to the Holy Land in 1598-99, Semerád decided to pair Harant’s late-Renaissance polyphony with traditional music of Ethiopia, Egypt, Syria, and Persia.
Thus the project became a collaboration with Kiya Tabassian and his cutting-edge ensemble Constantinople, a group that’s been pushing the definition and boundaries of early music since its inception in Canada in 2001. The name Constantinople is meant to reflect the vibrant multiculturalism of that historic city. In an interview with Czech music journalist Alena Sojková, Semerád explained that he and Tabassian did not want to keep their music separate: “I wanted Cappella Mariana, Kiya and Constantinople to find a common musical language, irrespective of our hailing from different cultures and even though our vocal polyphony sounds different from the instrumentally more colourful Middle Eastern music.”
Crucially, this commitment to interconnection did not convince Semerád to add instrumental accompaniment to Harant’s Missa quinis vocibus (Mass in five voices), which the Mariana singers perform without accompaniment. Adding Middle Eastern instruments to a Renaissance Mass Ordinary would have made for an entirely different musical experiment, stepping way outside even the widest interpretation of authenticity. It was a good choice to let Harant’s style speak for itself. The composer has the rich intensity of other sacred polyphony of the time — think Palestrina and Gesualdo. Cappella Mariana’s singing is clean and well-pitched, with clearly delineated phrases in the midst of contrapuntal complexity.
Interspersed between the Mass movements are the spots where the traditions combine. “Namaz-e Sham-e Ghariban,” placed between the Kyrie and Gloria, is a setting of a poem by the Persian writer Hafez reflecting on the endless breadth of light on every side at daybreak. It is sung with a great deal of improvisation by Tabassian against drones and rhythmically free plucking. Between Credo and Kyrie, Constantinople plays an anonymous work called “Tasbih-i misri: Nour,” with a slow introduction on percussion, plucked strings, and flutes, which then becomes the accompaniment for unison singing. A tasbih is a type of prayer song from the Sufi tradition.
One might ask why the Credo is presented here as the first part of the Mass, when it should be the third section. Semerád claims that he was trying to offer a sort of reverse biography of the composer, although that is not evident either from listening or from studying the program list. It’s a vague notion: The placement of the Credo at the start is supposed to represent the composer’s faith: Harant converted from Catholic to Protestant before joining the rebel movement in Bohemia.
Constantinople offers a panoply of sonic colors and textures. The instruments include kanun (zither), kemençe (bowed fiddle of Turkish and Greek extraction), and setar (Persian lute), plus various types of percussion. When the two groups work together, it can be mesmerizing. “Chashm-e Mast, Huseyni Agir Semai,” another setting of a Hafez poem, has the choir singing slowly at octaves as the instruments explore what seems to be multiple meters in tremolo and bowed melody.
The idea was to combine Harant’s works with music he might have heard on his journey, but again, it’s more of a vague concept than an accurate recreation. A monophonic setting in French of Psalm 4 by Pascal de l’Estocart (d. after 1587) is intertwined with two mesmurs (Ethiopian Christian chants) by Ali Ufki, who was born 12 years after Harant went on his pilgrimage.
The recording of the polyphonic works by Harant would have been worthwhile on its own, as would an introduction to various Middle Eastern sacred traditions. The blending of these two types of old sounds provides a new perspective on the past and a monument to unity that resonates through our own time.
