Voices of Connection: 11/3 William Byrd: Justorum anime

FROM GUEST CURATOR NEIL FARRELL

Byrd's unique combination of sturdy, rigorous construction, and a knack for harmonic surprises that melt your heart seems to be custom-made for Dennis Keene. There's no other piece of Byrd's that just SLAYS me like this one, and with Dennis at the helm, we got this one so very right. When we sing, "Visi sunt oculis insipientium mori," ("in the sight of the unwise they seem to die") repeating the last two words three times, what seems to set up yet another minor cadence on the word "die" instead melts into a blissfully beautiful major one, with the altos leaping a fourth out of a unison with the tenors ultimately settling on the third that makes it major, an advertised sad ending made happy.

The following descending lines of "[illi autem sunt] in pace" ("but they are at peace") set us back down gently onto solid ground, settling again and again in each voice on that major third, reminding us that we need not be sad for our lost loved ones. Brahms and Schütz, both in German, set this text with consummate skill as well, but this is the one that hits me the hardest.

When we got our complimentary advance copies of "From Chant to the Renaissance" I went home and listened to the entire disc in one sitting. This was track three. For this and the next few times I listened, the start of track four found me blurry-eyed and wet of face, searching for a box of tissues.

– Neil Farrell, founding member of Voices of Ascension

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