N E W
T I M E S
October 1997 |
Everything you loved about the concept of the Hildegard von Bingen albums (see review of Illumination in the June 1997 New Times) is carried out to the nth degree by impressive newcomer Davidson on this ambitions - and successful - album. Applying cutting edge technologies to an ancient musical form (in this case, the Latin mass), Davidson undertakes the daunting goal of breathing fresh life into a framework assumed to be spent thanks to already-existing interpretations by all the acknowledged masters.
Okay, so it’s new; it’s certainly original. Is it valid as a mass, even if one accepts that it’s innovative and entertaining music? My answer is “yes.” The artist himself is on record as not being Catholic, but who among us has not observed conflicts between following the path of the spirit and the dogma of the church? The mass, as performed here, incorporates the breadth of human experience with all its warmth, ache and playfulness. It will hardly put the Mozart or Beethoven Masses out of business, on the contrary, experiences with those will enhance the spiritual benefit of listening to this one, and vice versa.
As truly as the Masses of the classical masters can offer cathartic transcendence to anyone open to connection to the divine through music, so can this one. It comes with the gift of being accessible to those (probably especially younger listeners) unable to appreciate the nuances of classical convention that inform one’s experience of the traditional mass form; you might say this one has mass appeal.
Part of that has to do with the fact that the composer is, himself, but 25 years old. This is his debut effort, so he simultaneously has nothing and everything to prove. He has retained the complete Latin texts of each movement, but to become part of the voyage, he proposes one needn’t buy into any particular liberalization or translation. Every sound (except one narration) here was produced by the artist himself, including the (often multilayered) singing (three and a half octaves’ worth - move over, Yma Sumac).
The project never comes across as experimental for its own sake; each section makes both a musical and a spiritual point. As an added bonus, it sounds a lot better with its tracks randomly selected on a CD player’s “shuffle play” function than the sections of the classical masses generally do, although it’s still at its best take as a whole - just like life, and just like spirituality itself.
The over reverence expressed through the Quoniam, for example, is balanced through the rendering of the Credo. In the latter, Davidson cleverly (but not clever-cleverly) contrasts the most constrictive of the texts with an almost mischievous arrangement that sounds like a blend of the Swingle Singers, Benedictine monks and Brian Wilson at his most inspired.
Do you remember how refreshingly, breathtakingly different Switched-On Bach sounded when it came out in 1969 or so? This record stands out from the pack in much the same way and co-incidentally, Davidson is a protege of that album’s creator, Wendy Carlos. Blue Forest Mass is just as different today as the Carlos album was in its time (and remember how many imitators came out of the woodwork then?) The only comparisons I can make world be Richard Souther’s von Bingen tributes as stated earlier, but there is an earthier grounding to the Mass that sets it apart and make it a faster friend than those albums. Here’s your chance to get in on the ground floor of awareness of this important new artist.
There’s even a try-before-you-buy option: you can hear samples of the album (and even download the not-available-elsewhere ‘Polka’ version of the Cum Sanctu Spiritu at www.stretta.com |
