Paris Quintet Rekindles the Art of Chanson

Before TV, people did lots of things to entertain themselves at night, like talk, read and make music together. In 16th century France, they often sat around a table and sang four- and five-part chansons, and a vast repertoire for such occasions developed.

Sitting around a table onstage at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall on Saturday night, casually turning pages like a quintet of newscasters, the Paris-based Ensemble Clement Janequin performed a generous sampling of this music with astonishing virtuosity. The perfection of the musicians’ cohesion, intonation and balance, as well as the vim of their rapid-fire delivery, made them a joy to listen to.

Designed for domestic use, the 16th century chanson addressed the pleasures of the performers first, listeners second and public decorum not at all. Thus the gamesmanship of echoing imitation, the conversational mayhem and the bawdy humor (Sermisy’s “I eat no pork” was one particularly vivid example). Nor were the composers above imitating street cries and barnyard noises, and more than once Saturday, the members of the ensemble barked, growled, chirped and squawked at one another in vigorous rhythmic gambits.

Leader Dominique Visse, a countertenor, often cultivated a decided nasal twang, and this, combined with the similarly narrowed sounds of the lower voices, resulted in a buzzing texture not immediately identifiable as vocal.

In contrast to the busy, declamatory program chansons of Janequin, a “Fricassee” by Anon. (with several texts sung simultaneously) and high-spirited works by Josquin, Compere and others, the ensemble offered slower and more tender chansons on subjects of jilted love, death and suicide--only the extremes, apparently, in this repertoire. Josquin’s “Nymphes des boys,” a lamentation for fellow composer Ockeghem, was among the most touching of these melancholy pieces. Lutenist and guitarist Eric Bellocq provided sparkling instrumental interludes and accompaniment.