from Medieval Academy News

You can’t sing a footnote: The continuing adventures of Anonymous 4
by Susan Hellauer

As it says in our official biography—and it’s actually true—Anonymous 4 is a group of four women who first got together in 1986 to experiment with the sound of medieval chant and polyphony as sung by higher voices. Up to that time, with rare exceptions (such as the music of Abbess Hildegard of Bingen), medieval chant and polyphony were generally considered a male domain, at least insofar as “authentic” performances were concerned. There is some scant evidence that medieval polyphony would have been sung by women. For example, the early fourteenth-century Codex Las Huelgas, preserved at a convent in Burgos, Spain, is an anthology of sacred monophonic and polyphonic music, some of it perhaps a hundred years old at the time the manuscript was written. But there is no direct evidence that the music in that manuscript was actually performed by the women of that convent in the thirteenth century. The thirteenth-century fragments of polyphony from the convent of the Order of St. Clare in Stary Sanc, Poland, seem more like pieces copied for actual use by the nuns than for preservation, as at Burgos, but this Polish convent was certainly outside the mainstream of Western European culture of its time.

There are other bits of evidence from England and Italy. But how much can be extrapolated from these juicy little hints? Are they relevant to the many other wonderful bodies of polyphonic music that attracted us: the richly harmonic thirteenth-century English motets and conductus, eleventh-century polyphony from Aquitaine, thirteenth-century French courtly love motets, or the twelfth-century Codex Calixtinus? What was a girl group to do?

As in any of the arts, creative or re-creative, at some point the thinking has to stop and the flow of intuitive juice has to take over. So it was with us. We barely stopped to ask “why?” and started saying “why not!” Bach’s cantatas, written for men and boys, were normally performed with female voices without causing an uproar. And we were certainly not going to be recreating an actual medieval liturgical service. Plainchant was sung in convents as well as monasteries. What’s more, the close, even overlapping, voice ranges of parts in polyphonic music from the high Middle Ages are perfectly suited to an equal-voice ensemble.

We knew where to find good editions of medieval music, and, if they didn’t exist, we knew how to make them, or to find someone who could. We began to sing, reading through piece after piece, concentrating on French and English polyphony of the thirteenth century. And it worked. Well, of course not every single piece was a winner. Some we just didn’t like, some didn’t sit right for our four particular voices. But most worked perfectly. The intricate, interweaving lines of music, which could sound muddy and indistinct even when beautifully sung by baritones, came to life in higher voices. The lines seemed more clearly etched and, at the same time, well blended.

From the beginning, we included plainchant in our plans, finding that its unison melody was a perfect foil for early polyphony. It was no accident that the juxtaposition of chant and sacred polyphony worked so well. The music of medieval liturgical services was plainchant; polyphony would have been heard only sparingly (if at all). Without at least some hint at that context and variation of texture, the fresh, startling complexity of medieval polyphony loses some of its impact. We’d heard chant being tossed off thoughtlessly, merely a boring necessity in too many early-music concerts. The beauty of the best plainchant can bring you to your knees. It deserved no less than our full and equal attention.

We made a little, local name for ourselves in New York City, putting together concert programs that focused on one theme, or manuscript, or saint, or feast day. There was no intermission, no recital-like applause after each little gem, just a continuous flow of music, articulated and given structure by spoken medieval poetry or prose. Although we didn’t recreate liturgical services, we often used the inherently dramatic structure of the liturgy as a framework for our programs, attempting to create for our listeners a context for whatever repertory we presented. We worked hard (and still do) to sing well in tune, well synchronized, with unity of intent. From the start, we consciously avoided typecasting ourselves as solely or primarily performers of “women’s music,” postponing the wonderful music of Hildegard of Bingen until we’d established ourselves as simply a vocal ensemble specializing in medieval music. Even though our existence and our efforts were not dependent upon their answers, we asked musicologists—those who had actually published the major transcriptions of some of the repertories we were singing—whether we were committing heresy, but all we received was encouragement and support.

By 1990, our friends and colleagues were urging us to find a way to make a recording. The American branch of the French company harmonia mundi (for whom we still record) took a chance on us. We signed on to do one CD of thirteenth-century music, An English Ladymass. Now we were very publicly going where women simply had not gone before—were believed by some not to be allowed to go—and officials at harmonia mundi understandably asked that we get a note from a musicologist “or the French critics will just rip us apart.” (Why particularly the French we don’t know.) We got our backup with no problem; the record was made in 1991 and released in 1992. It began slowly but steadily to climb up the rungs of the Billboard classical charts, and by February of 1993, got into the top 10 and stayed there for several months.

After our initial astonishment subsided, we quit our day jobs and began a full-time career of research, recording, concert touring, and academic residencies. Nobody criticized us for our trespass onto what was previously considered male territory until the fall of 1993, when our second recording, On Yoolis Night, was reviewed in American Record Guide. The writer criticized us harshly for singing “men’s music.” Here it comes, we thought: run out of town on a four-seat rail, complete with tar and feathers. We waited for the next attacks, but none ever came. The general reaction to our efforts and our recordings continued to be: good job, thank you for letting us hear this music. And people hear it in different ways, for different reasons. Some listen in a dark room with candles lit; others follow the music and texts closely, and e-mail us their comments on poetic forms, liturgical usage, transcription, and translation.

We do our homework and get advice from many generous experts in medieval music, literature, and language. We keep up with the latest in performance practice theory, but find references to medieval vocal style, ornamentation, and interpretation to be (understandably, and unfortunately) inconsistent, vague, and even contradictory. Thinking deeply about how to be authentic, or historically informed, can cause all sorts of headaches (which is not to say that it isn’t worth the effort or shouldn’t be done). Consider this: contemporary commentators complained of how Carolingian singers were ignoring or mangling the traditional vocal production and style of the Old Roman chant they were being taught. Does this mean that it is correct to try to reconstruct and emulate the Old Roman style for the chant that was carried north from Rome in that era (i.e., sing it the way its “keepers” had always sung it), or to bellow and howl like the crude, rude Franks if one is using a Frankish manuscript source (i.e., sing it the way it was actually sung by its “corruptors”)? Which is authentic? Both, perhaps, if you could know for certain how either one sounded. But you can’t sing a footnote, and you’d have to make a choice.

So, when the manuscripts have been examined, the theorists consulted, the musicologists taken in for questioning, and still no clear answer appears, we fall back on the ultimate authorities:

“Perfecta autem vox est alta, suavis et clara: alta, ut in sublime sufficiat; clara, ut aures adinpleat; suavis, ut animos audientium blandiat.” —Isidore of Seville

“If it sounds good, it is good.” —Duke Ellington

Editor’s note. Anonymous 4 has sold over a million CDs worldwide (including two albums of Christmas music). At press time, the group’s latest CD La bele Marie is number seven on the Billboard classical charts. For more information about Anonymous 4, visit its Website: http://www.anonymous4.com.