Music Reviews : Waverly Consort Offers Tour of Italian Works

The idea was simple enough: Present in a single concert a musical tour of Renaissance Italy that encapsulates two centuries of achievement. That’s what the Waverly Consort apparently had in mind Wednesday night at the Bing Theater of the County Museum of Art.

But 46 pieces and more than two hours later, one was left with impressions of a musical diversity well beyond the scope of concise definition. It was a long way, both temporally and stylistically, from where the concert began, with Dufay’s cerebral “Motet for the Consecration of Santa Maria del Fiore” of 1436, to where it ended, with Banchieri’s “The Animals Improvise Counterpoint” (circa 1600), with its silly bow-wows, meows and cuckoos. Even the hour-long preconcert lecture and the lavishly illustrated 36-page program booklet could do little in the way of cohesive summary.

Highlights included that Dufay motet--its musical architecture a mathematical mirror of Brunelleschi’s dome--in a simple and elegant performance by six voices accompanied with handbells. There was Isaac’s somber 1492 “Lament on the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici,” with the tenors dropping out in the third verse representing the absence of Lorenzo, a tenor himself. There were madrigals early and late, from the simple beginnings by Festa and Verdelot to the complex heights of chromaticism, tone painting and virtuosic display of Marenzio, Wert and Monteverdi. These were in conspicuous contrast to the broad humor and bawdy vulgarities of the street music of Venice and Naples that followed.

Throughout the sold-out performance, the Waverly Consort brought unassuming expertise and expressive ease to all of the music. Though performing in historically accurate style from scholarly editions on authentic reproductions of period instruments, the results were anything but stuffy or pedantic. And even if one couldn’t entirely grasp the stunning variety of it all, one could certainly enjoy the ride.