Ensemble harmonizes Hebrew letters

It is the first-ever recording of his “Lamentations,” said Craig Phillips, the bass-baritone in New York Polyphony. Crecquillon was a Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer.

	If you go WHAT: New York Polyphony WHEN: 7 p.m. Friday, March 8 WHERE: Cathedral Church of St. John, 318 Silver SW HOW MUCH: $25 general public, $20 seniors, $10 students with ID in advance at www.fcmabq.org or, if available, at the door

The work also is the centerpiece of the first half of the ensemble’s Friday, March 8 concert at the Cathedral Church of St. John.

“It’s an exquisite piece of music. It is built densely, almost like a string quartet, but it’s for a vocal quartet,” Phillips said in a phone interview.

In the first part, Hebrew letters are set to music in a sort of group of one to two minutes each. He described them as fanfares.

“Each letter gets a polyphonic treatment – sustained, very emotional music … then it moves into a Latin text of the ‘Lamentations.’ … The Latin phrases are more animated,” Phillips said.

Jeremiah was a Hebrew prophet who lived during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple.

During Crecquillon’s time, the “Lamentations” would have been sung in churches during Holy Week. In Christian liturgy, Jeremiah is a symbol of the Passion of Christ.

Antoine Brumel’s Requiem, which is on the same CD as the Crecquillon, is the only piece New York Polyphony will sing in the second half of its concert.

“It’s one of the earliest polyphonic versions of the Requiem Mass,” Phillips said.

“Before Brumel there was a plainchant service. This is an early elevation scored for more voices. … It’s very dramatic and is interspersed with plainchant. It has an ancient sound to it.”

Brumel was a French composer during the Renaissance.

The album “endBEGINNINGS” has received a great deal of critical praise, including being named a Notable CD of 2012 by The New Yorker.

Now in its seventh season, the ensemble has toured 32 states and 11 countries. It is making its German debut later this month with three concerts. One of those concerts is in Berlin at which New York Polyphony will premiere Gregory Brown’s “Missa Charles Darwin.”

“We developed it with him,” Phillips said. “It’s the same format as a sacred mass but with the sacred text removed and replaced with the writings of Charles Darwin.”

Darwin was a 19th-century English naturalist known for his theory of evolution.

Besides Phillips, the other members of the vocal ensemble are tenor Steven Caldicott Wilson, counter-tenor Geoffrey Williams and baritone Christopher Dylan Herbert.