Music : ‘Burgundian Court’ Opens Season at Getty

The fifth season of summer concerts at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu got under way Saturday with a luxurious offering of 15th- and 16th-Century “Music at the Burgundian Court,” splendidly performed by the Early Music Ensemble of San Diego.

Though without a centralized capital, the vast Burgundian Duchy was undoubtedly the center of musical Europe, with Guillaume Dufay, canon at Cambrai, leading the way for such composers as Busnois, Binchois, Ockeghem and Josquin. In all, the San Diegans offered 22 works that amply demonstrated the progress and richness of the Burgundians’ art.

Highlights included Dunstable’s “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” its spare polyphony cerebrally weaving around the solemnly sustained tenor chant; Busnois’ “Je ne puis vivre,” its startling effect made by gently sliding out of polyphony into foursquare homophony--highlighting the text--then sliding back into it; Dufay’s landmark motet “Nuper rosarum flores,” and his “Flos florum,” with its surprising, buzzing dissonance.

Expressive music abounded, from “O rosa bella,” attributed to Dunstable, which is every bit as world-weary as Mahler, to the florid, aching outpouring of Josquin’s “Plusieurs regretz,” sung to the text “All the sorrows of earth, of every man and woman, are pleasure compared with my pain.”

The performers--Elisabeth Marti and Constance Lawthers, sopranos; Victoria Heins-Shaw contralto; John Peeling, tenor; Philip Larson, bass; Michael Eagan, lute--lived up to the music with precisely tuned and rhythmically clear performances.

Their readings went to the core of emotional content, yet were delivered in radiant, unforced tones. Robert Winter’s lively preconcert commentary, the colorful costumes and the location, the Inner Peristyle Garden, added further resonance to the occasion.