What might you get if you have modern pop songwriters put music to ancient poetry? Music to be played on the lute and sung by a tenor and a soprano who specialize in art songs? It could have been a train wreck or it could have been just boring. Instead, this disc is a beautiful surprise.
On Amores Pasados tenor John Potter (Hilliard Ensemble, Red Byrd) is accompanied by lutenists Ariel Abramovich and Jacob Heringman, and joined by soprano Anna Maria Friman (Trio Mediaeval), who also plays the hardanger fiddle on some pieces. The program consists principally of songs written by John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin, Dave Rawlings Machine) and Tony Banks (Genesis), who set old words to new tunes, and Sting, who wrote an old-sounding song for a movie. It also includes some genuine old songs by English poets and balladeers from the 16th through 19th centuries.
I should say that when a piece of music is done by “tenors” and “sopranos” I generally run the other way – opera and art songs aren’t really my thing. But on the other hand I’ve enjoyed lute music for quite some time – the instrument has a lovely sound, somehow dry and full-bodied at once – and both of these singers (but especially Potter) sing in a manner that to me sounds at least as much “folk” as “art.” Also, no small part of the credit goes to the lutenists. They play in a way that sounds to me as though they’re not bound by the strictures that often bind old music played on period instruments.
At any rate, I was sold on this recording from the first notes. It opens with the title work, a suite of the three songs contributed by Jones, which are “set to poems from three great ages of Spanish literature,” according to Potter’s instructive liner notes. “Al Son de los Arroyuelos” is an uptempo song in 5/4, a stately duet between Potter and Friman with her hardanger droning behind the energetically plucked lutes; “No Dormía” is as stark and bare as the preceding song is lush and danceable – just the droning fiddle and one lute, its vocal harmonies close and modern-sounding, which fits the lyric. Here’s the first verse in translation, for example: I did not sleep, but wandered in that limbo / where all objects lose their shapes, / mysterious spaces that separate / waking from sleep. And “So ell Encina” is a lovely lilting waltz, a sad romance told by a man who sets off alone on a pilgrimage but instead of religious devotion finds himself enraptured by midnight visions of his lover.
Tony Banks wrote new melodies for a couple of songs by English composer Thomas Campion (1567-1620). The ensemble presents them here as well as Campion’s original versions. The modern rewrites definitely sound more accessible to a 21st-century ear, and wouldn’t be out of place on a modern English folk or folk-rock album.
Sting wrote “Bury Me Deep In The Greenwood” for a film version of “Robin Hood.” It has an authentic period feel to its, with its heavy downbeat at the beginning of each bar. Sting himself learned lute in order to record an album of works by an early lute-song composer, John Dowland, one of Campion’s contemporaries.
There are more songs and two beautiful instrumental interludes for just the lutes. All in all, it’s an enchanting program, the sound lovingly sculpted by ECM chief and producer Manfred Eicher from mostly live recordings at an Oslo studio in late 2014. My takeaway: John Potter, in his context, rocks. On the strength of Amores Pasados I’ll be seeking out more of his work, which for me could be the surprise of the year.
ECM, 2015
You can listen to “Al Son de los Arroyuelos” on the ECM website’s player.
