Thursday, February 12, 1998
Performance will be a little naughty, but nice
MUSIC: Valentine’s Day show to offer blend of Renaissance, pop
culture
By Kristi Nakamura
Daily Bruin Contributor
Still looking for something to do on Valentine’s Day? Want to
take a date to something romantic, cultured, but still a little bit
naughty? Or is protesting all the romantic mush and coupledom more
the goal this year?
Either way, Ensemble Clement Janequin will have something to
offer for all Valentine’s Day moods and attitudes when it arrives
for its Los Angeles debut at Schoenberg Hall on Saturday.
"There’s plenty of love in the program. Nearly every other song
is a love song," says Ian Malkin, the ensemble’s manager in Paris.
"But some of them are very naughty indeed."
The Paris-based, all-male ensemble performs both sacred and
secular vocal music of the Renaissance period, exploring both the
lesser known and the famous composers of the time, such as
Janequin, for whom the group is named.
Combining popular and high Renaissance culture, as well as
elements of bawdiness and melancholy, the ensemble attempts to
create a unique program that is diversified and accessible.
"Accessibilty is really indeed very important because that’s one
thing that Dominique Visse, the boss (and counter-tenor), is very
good at because he’s been performing for years," Malkin says. "He’s
very good at sensing the way a program works with an audience,
making sure there are not too many long, slow sections. You know,
and contrasting the satire pieces, the more lyrical pieces, with
the more crazy pieces."
The energy and comedy behind many of the pieces brings out an
element of fun and debauchery that one might not expect to find in
a concert hall. Ensemble Clement Janequin recognizes that these
songs were meant to be pleasures shared in company, singing around
a table.
"Some pieces are very earthy, even under the earth," says
baritone Francois Fauche. "It was diversion music. It was a sort of
game. People were meeting and they were singing songs, very funny,
and it was part of social life."
Visse and the Ensemble Clement Janequin are able to create such
a continuously moving, varied concert because the songs are all
fairly short.
The entire program consists of 20 to 30 different pieces, each
no more than five minutes long.
"We try to alternate slow and fast paces and to make things easy
listening and living," Fauche says.
While the program is really a musical concert, the members of
the group know the music and each other so well that their on-stage
repartee of teasing, winking and singing becomes almost
theatrical.
"The last piece will have the audience in complete fits, I
guarantee you," Malkin says. "It’s called ‘The Hunt’ and they
imitate dogs and hunting horns and its just a complete riot. It
does become a little bit visual there."
Other songs in the program use imitation in a similar way to
communicate the character and noise of the marketplace or the songs
of birds, like the cuckoo.
With its unconventional programs of Renaissance music, the
Ensemble celebrates its 20th anniversary season with a four-city
U.S. tour before beginning a five-week over seas tour. Los Angeles
is the second stop on the tour.
"For us this music is like bottled life," Fauche says. "We try
to make this music very alive, but with respect of what could be
the perception of music at this time."
MUSIC: "Ensemble Clement Janequin" will perform its Los Angeles
debut Saturday at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25,
$9 with UCLA ID. For more information, call (310) 825-2101.
UCLA Center for the Performing Arts
Ensemble Clement Janequin performs Valentine’s Day at Schoenberg
Hall.