David Dalle
Thursday August 23rd, 2018 with David Dalle
And behold the Earth moves

Today a very special, personal show, dedicated to my extremely open-minded, music-loving mother-in-law Elizabeth Williams (Zary) who died Tuesday, Aug 21st. We will hear some music associated with her, including the group Musafir from Rajasthan and Simon & Garfunkel, and we will start with perhaps the most unique, extravagant, and glorious piece of music from Renaissance Europe: Antoine Brumel's Mass "Et ecce terrae motus" ("and behold the Earth moves"). What makes this musical setting of the Mass so spectacular is the massive musical forces involved, its massive size, and its extraordinary virtuosic musical demands. It was written for 12 voices, and the 12 voices are present nearly throughout the entire piece (that is 12 independent musical lines, not just 12 individual singers), this creates an incredible dense texture, extravagantly rich and deep. Richly ornamented and excessively emotional, ranging from the awesome and terrifying power of the Kyrie Eleison to the more gentle Christus Eleison, the glory of the Sanctus, and this massive structure all finding a transcendent peaceful conclusion in the Agnus Dei. One can only use superlatives in describing this music, because there is nothing else like it in the Renaissance. It is irresistible to wonder and speculate on why Antoine Brumel, a French composer from the late 15th and early 16th century, composed such a magnificent piece, none of his other masses are similar. It would have been so demanding to perform, so hard to stage, it is tempting to believe he just thought (along the lines of) "to Hell with it, I need to create this Everest, let's live life!" I believe this mass has only been surpassed by Bach's over 200 years later.