Micrologus; Vox Humana

85-03 VOX HUMANA

In the world of Early Music, there is no voice more distinctive, no interpretation more masterful, no recording career more influential, than that of Andrea von Ramm. Though it has been nearly ten years since the group disbanded, the concerts and recordings she did with the Studio der Frühen Musik (the Early Music Quartet) remain the touchstones by which new recordings of those repertories are measured.

I had a chance to chat with the Estonian-born singer recently, and began by asking about her vocal training, and how she got her start in early music.

RAMM: I think I did not like early music, and so I started it. I studied in Germany and there I had an ordinary, normal, and solid sort of training; and then I went to Italy and I knew that I did not like the oratorio field, although I made my living with that; and I unfortunately knew that I really did not belong also to the opera, although I love this field; and it sounds like an excuse, but when I was asked to join a group in early music, I suddenly realized that it is not just "Early Music," but it is five hundred years of music, with an almost unknown facility and skill for the voice, and I think that stays almost to nowadays my interest.

[MUSIC: Andrea von Ramm singing "Unter der Linden" (Under the linden tree), by the minnesinger Walter von der Vogelweide. She was accompanied on the psaltery by Thomas Binkley]

DUFFIN: Here, she looks back on the pioneering years with that ensemble.

RAMM: I have also to admit that we were very lucky to be pioneers, as you said before, because we were the first, and we did not need to change so much. The competition nowadays is very hard, so everybody tries to be good in a variety of programming, but not really being into a special style. We could do a record and then we thought a lot, and then we took the repertory on tour, and the next season, or even half of the season, we started a new record or a new approach and new reconsideration by touring. Nowadays, of course, it is an enormous kind of pressure because of making money. We were very modest at that time with money-making, I think, but we made it, and we dedicated all our life, we did not do any teaching, we did not do anything else but touring and doing our music, and we had lots of fun. That was a great time, no question.

[MUSIC: "Tempus est iocundum," a song of impatient love from the Carmina Burana, sung by Andrea von Ramm with the Studio der Frühen Musik, directed by Thomas Binkley]

DUFFIN: The Studio's recordings of the Carmina Burana and the Songs of the Minnesingers are among their earliest and most influential. The 1970s saw the group turn its attention to the monuments of the 14th and 15th century polyphony: Machaut, Landini, Ciconia, Dufay, and Oswald von Wolkenstein.

RAMM: Oswald is a very skillful poet; I put him in the same bag as Machaut. Machaut was much more sophisticated, but Oswald was probably more sensual in his use of words. You know the piece, "Par maintes toy" that he copied in the "Der may mit lieber zal," and I think that everybody always agrees that "Der may mit lieber zal" is more successful. And so I like him, because he had such an incredible mastery of the German language, without making some rough or kind of juicy angularity, let us put it this way, but there is lots of poetry at the same time. I think he is a great, great poet, as well as somebody who performs and knows how a performance should go. So there is not very much esoteric about him, but very much poetic feeling.

[MUSIC: "Der may mit lieber zal," Oswald von Wolkenstein's German remake of Jean Vaillant’s "Par maintes foy," inimitably performed by Andrea von Ramm with Sterling Jones and Thomas Binkley of the Studio der Frühen Musik]

DUFFIN: Miss von Ramm's first love continues to be medieval monophony, but since the disbanding of the Studio she has further pursued a love of modern music, especially that using the spoken word as musical material. With that in mind, I asked her why certain eras in between the Middle Ages and the present fail to attract her. Most curious, perhaps, is her dislike of the Renaissance.

RAMM: First of all, so far I am alone and Renaissance is really polyphonic, or homophonic, if you want. You need instruments for that, and I think it is not possible to make an adequate performance with taping instruments and singing the 5th part— I mean that really goes too far, and I do not think that works! The other thing is that I do not like very much the 15th and 16th centuries as historical events: nationalism, poor poetry, I may say—let us leave a little alone the 15th century—but in the 16th century, almost all over it is poor poetry. It is just a rhyme scheme that hacks along, you know—"morir, servir, languir”—I do not think that is interesting. And there is also a very rapid and very definite change in the sound of language. The Italians, say, for instance, Ariosto—so I have really to say, 1500—the Italian language lacks a certain kind of rhythm. Rhythm is not meter; it is, rather, a shifting quantity, quantity in counting syllables, 11 syllables, 8 syllables, 7 syllables. And that was also the main skill of the French poets at this certain time. And then later on in the Renaissance comes the misunderstanding of the Greek meter, and so then came the non-accent and so that is still wavering through our performances, that we cannot hardly see a bar-line without doing a slight accent on 1. It is not the bar-line's fault; it is just our own fault. And I think, therefore, also they do some harm to the language. Also the madrigals: they have nice musical notes, but they do not have poetry, they do not have a full form, they have just little ideas. It is short-breathed, the Renaissance.

DUFFIN: When does music begin to grab your attention again?

RAMM: 1600, a little before, but in 1600 the Italians had all the northern influence that came with Netherland motets and madrigals and so on. The Italians were very skillful in madrigals, and when they were on their height they realized: "that actually is not our art, that comes from someplace else," and so they invented the opera. Now, that is a short version, of course, but it is, I think, a kind of sound one, because in1600 there was the first opera, and monody: little, incredibly expressive scenes, let us say, and with an enormous kind of force in the declamation and the expression, and all of that. And then of course with it, funnily enough, goes the enormous skill of the castrati: at eight years you started, you were mutilated and you had per forza to dedicate all your life to music, and I think that is a very forceful motive for excellence. So I think we should try a little harder to get into this enormous involvement. Probably not the skill of breath and the skill of the sound of the castrati, but this involvement I wish we would stress more, and not just sight-read an opera for a recording.

[MUSIC: "Lo ferm voler," a song by the troubadour Arnaut Daniel, performed by Andrea von Ramm with Thomas Binkley]

Lastly, I asked what kind of training Miss von Ramm feels is necessary for a successful singer of early music.

RAMM: I think a very, very solid training, very solid, and I think still one should do some opera. I think early music is on the verge of getting so esoteric that you hardly hear the singers any more because they are so sophisticated. I call that "necklace" singing: just lots of head, a little bit of throat, and no body. Of course, I heard a beautiful reference from the English scene that seems to change radically just now, that is "rhetoric and passion," and I think besides a good solid, healthy vocal material, you need passion and you need the desire to express yourself and not just to make pretty sounds.

DUFFIN: Does that differ from vocal production for opera or something like that?

RAMM: Yes, first of all, you have to make decisions and differentiations. You cannot sing German music like French music, or French music like Italian music, or monophonic music like monodic music around 1600. I think every generation has its ideas of voice, and since we know so much, and we have so much music, we should try at least to do justice to the music and its aims as such, and especially the singer. I, of course, as a singer, say that up to 1650 all music was related to singing and to poetry and to words and to language.

DUFFIN: It puts a terrible pressure on a singer to be an expert in so many different languages and, not only the languages, but the musical styles of the different generations.

RAMM: Absolutely right, and singers are unfortunately lazy people, and so they avoid that, and they rather try to be instrumental, and that is the usual idea: to be perfect in the instrumental requirements, in agility, pitch, and facility, and prettiness. And, I think, from there we start and from there we go and try to express something.

[MUSIC: "Hie vor do wir kinder waren," by the late 13th century composer known variously as Meister Alexander or Wilde (Wild) Alexander]

Through her own commentary, as well as this sampling of her classic recordings with the Studio der Frühen Musik (the Early Music Quartet), you have been listening to a program exploring the words and music of Andrea von Ramm, a program entitled Vox Humana.