Chorale Accents the Joyful Character of Ockeghem Works

The quincentennial of the death of Johannes Ockeghem came and went two years ago with little local notice. But the anniversary was much marked by early music vocal groups, and ripples of their efforts have finally washed up here, thanks to UCLA’s Center for the Performing Arts. In May, Anonymous 4 and Lionheart combined for an Ockeghem program in Royce Hall, and Friday the Clerk’s Group made a stunning Los Angeles debut in Schoenberg Hall with a concert devoted to the Franco-Flemish master and related contemporaries.

Ockeghem’s art is about complex polyphonic constructs, the textbooks say. The Clerk’s Group, however, advances the simple but revolutionary premise that this is music by a singer, for singers. Soprano Rebecca Outram, countertenor William Missin, tenors Thomas Raskin and Matthew Vine, baritone-director Edward Wickham, and bass Robert Macdonald gathered in a tight semicircle around a facsimile of a period choir book and sang with great character and presence, seemingly for the sheer communal joy.

And achievement it was, balanced in sound, supple in line, and not abashed about matters such as dynamics and timbral contrast. Purity was there in transparent textures, unwavering pitch and effortless blend, but the range of individual expressive freedom was huge.

The repertory--most of it recorded by the group--consisted of extracts from three Ockeghem Masses, his Requiem and a pair of Marian motets, plus Robert Morton’s “L’homme arme” setting and four pieces by Josquin des Prez. Daunting stuff in abstract, but the Clerk’s Group has internalized the style and sings it with emotional and vocal gusto.

Founder Wickham also read pertinent and amusing selections from contemporary writers. In encore cum benediction, there was the “Salva nos, Domine” by Jean Mouton.