On the eve of Easter, several dozen would-be listeners took numbers and waited in a line outside the sold-out St. John’s Chapel of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge in hopes of snagging a ticket for work first heard about 650 years ago. The Boston Camerata, directed by Anne Azéma, offered the music of the Mass Ordinary (the musical portions of the Mass whose texts remain fixed throughout the liturgical year) by Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377), the most significant composer of the 14^th century and also no mean poet. They were joined by Convivium Musicum, Michael Barrett, director, an ensemble specializing in plainsong, to perform the Mass Propers for a specific liturgical purpose.

When we hear the Ordinary in concert, whether one by Machaut, Dufay, Josquin, Palestrina, Monteverdi, Haydn, or Mozart, the sections—Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei—are performed directly one after another, like the movements of a symphony. But in a church service, they are always placed within the context of other liturgical materials which reflect the particular occasion—a feast in the church year like Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, etc., or a special saint’s day, a particular expression of devotion to the Virgin (many opportunities developed in the Middle Ages and Renaissance). Because the text that surrounds the Ordinary of the Mass was special, or proper, to the occasion, these sections are called the Propers. A complete service, lasting perhaps an hour or so, intersperses readings, prayers, and other musical elements (such as a motet) among the movements of the Ordinary.

An invitation in 2011 to help celebrate the 800^th Anniversary of the French Cathedral inspired the Boston Camerata. Director Anne Azéma described in an article [here] in the Intelligencer about the honor of being asked to take part in this celebration, as well as the musical and scholarly issues involved. For the first American presentation of their version of the Machaut Mass, they chose a small neo-Gothic chapel, possibly about the size of a side chapel at the great cathedral in Reims, where it is likely that the Mass was first heard.

The Propers included Saturday were connected to the devotion to Mary, beginning with “Salve, sancta Parens” (Hail holy mother) for the Introit, were monophonic compositions given by the members of Convivium Musicum (Noah Bullock, Christopher Chase, Michael Dettelbach, T. Jefferson Kline, Christopher Laumer, John Nesby, and Dan Schenk). Most of this music was sung in unison, though some portions featured a solo voice. The intonation, or opening words, which gives the pitch to the others, is naturally one of these, and the Biblical readings from Ecclesiastes and Luke are chanted with minimal melodic content by a single reader.

This framework marked the arrival of the Ordinary, with four polyphonic parts, all the more striking. Today we are familiar with music in parts, but even as late as the 14^th-century this would be extremely difficult music; only highly trained virtuosi, who were able to hold their own parts, could meet the demands of the often syncopated, rhythms that were far from the flowing regularity of the plainchant.

We heard superb musicians, among the most highly regarded in this repertory in the worldwide company of early music performers. Technical issues were handled with aplomb, giving the impression that they have sung this music from birth. When I began studying Medieval and Renaissance music in the early 1960s, live performances were virtually impossible to find, and recordings were so monotonously dull and lifeless that we students often asked one another how on earth music could have survived. All that, happily, has changed. Hearing Medieval music sung by an ensemble as expert as this, and as committed to bringing the music to life, easily answers that half-century old question.

The singers of Camerata included Michael Barrett, Timothy Leigh Evans, Daniel Hershey, Eric Mentzel (all tenors), Joel Nesvadba (baritone), and Donald Wilkinson (bass-baritone, replacing the ailing Paul Guttry).  It was originally planned to have an all-vocal performance, but illness necessitated the addition of two sacqueboutiers (players of the sackbut, an early form of the trombone—here Brian Kay and Steven Lundahl) to essay several passages for which Machaut provided no words. These instruments have a long history in liturgical performance, and they added striking colors when they entered.

To hear a work of such historic significance and power in a complete liturgical setting (though without the Eucharist or other actions that would have made it an actual religious service) on the night before Easter, performed with such complete mastery of the materials and the style made for a thrilling sense of artistic time travel, a fact recognized by the enthusiastic standing ovation from the packed house.

Steven Ledbetter is a free-lance writer and lecturer on music. He got his BA from Pomona College and PhD from NYU in Musicology. He taught at Dartmouth College in the 1970s, then became program annotator at the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1979 to 1997.