Review: MARTYRS & RELICS, A Mashup of Buxtehude, Shaw and Balliett at St. John the Divine

How did the martyrs—those Christians and otherwise who have been put to death or endured great suffering defending their beliefs, principles, or causes—meet their ends? As told through Douglas AA Balliett’s MARTYRS & RELICS, which played a handful of performances this week as its world premiere in the crypt of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, under the aegis of Andrew Ousley’s “Death of Classical,” it all depends on the source you use.

“Death of Classical’s” concert series have taken place in crypts, cemeteries and catacombs around town but the particular space used for these concerts performed beneath the Cathedral of St. John the Divine is special: A subterranean chamber of unusual intimacy considering its size.

As performed by the vocal chamber ensemble The New Consort and the period instrument band, Theotokos, it was an extraordinary concert that is nothing like you might expect, but much like what you’d hope for, in an intensely intimate work that brings together the old and new.

“Mash-up” might seem a bit disrespectful for this kind of piece, but it certainly well describes the way the works of Dietrich Buxtehude, Caroline Shaw and Douglas AA Baliett fit together. It’s simply hard to figure out where the work of one composer ends and the next starts, what one contributes and another builds upon.

It is an exquisitely spiritual work, restrained yet filled with gorgeous voices from the five singers of the New Consort and eloquent chamber music from Theotokos, a string quartet augmented by a theorbo, an organ and a bass played by composer Balliett, who contributed the piece that gave the evening its name. Whether alone or as ensemble, the musicians the performers are superb.

Balliett’s music has been described elsewhere (NYT) as “vivid, emotive, with contemporary twists,” but in MARTYRS & RELICS, the newest of the music on the program, it is indeed somewhat difficult to separate his work from the others as it recounts stories of “Christians who followed Jesus’s example and highlights parallel figures in other faiths.”

Of course, he is in good company. The evening really starts with Dietrich Buxtehude’s “Membra Jesu Nostri” from 1680.

Buxtehude was organist of the Marienkirche in Lubeck (Germany) for nearly four decades; he composed as well, including seven cantatas. “Membra Jesu Nostri” is sometimes referred to as “the first Lutheran oratorio” and is considered the composer’s masterwork; each part addresses a different part of Christ’s suffering on the Cross.

From here, we go to selections from the recent (2016) “To the Hands” by Caroline Shaw, who won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her a cappella piece Partita for 8 Voices. “Hands” was commissioned as a response to the “Ad manus” (the Latin translation section of the title) section of “Membra,” sampling selections of the score, while containing original and pre-existing texts.

According to her own description, Shaw is “a musician who moves among roles, genres, and mediums, trying to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed, often working in collaboration with others… .” So finding her in the company of other composers is no surprise, as their music is interspersed seamlessly in MARTYRS & RELICS (though it’s hard to think of Buxtehude’s music being described as being characterized by “metric dissonance and hyper-polyphonic texture,” as Shaw’s has been). Thus, my “mash-up” descriptor.

In the end, the how-why-and-where of the construction of MARTYRS & RELICS appears to matters little to the listener. What is clear is that we have been moved and that the pieces have come together, relevant to our lives today.

Caption: Aine Hakamatsuka, soprano, The New Consort

Credit: Steven Pisano

The New Consort

Aine Hakamatsuka, soprano; Olivia Greene, soprano; Elisa Sutherland, mezzo; Jacob Perry, tenor; Brian Mummert, baritone

Theotokos

Ela Kodzas, violin; Rafa Prendergast, violin; Andrew Gonzalez, viola; Charles Reed, cello; Doug Balliett, bass; Dusan Balarin, theorbo; Caitlyn Koester, organ