In the arts, as in love, a new inspiration can leave in its wake a void previously unknown.
So it is with Anonymous 4, the all- female vocal ensemble that carved out a niche for itself by focusing mainly on European medieval music as well as contemporary works. The four extraordinary singers were royalty amid New York’s early music scene for nearly two decades, with liturgical repertoire originally performed by male voices of the Middle Ages.
Talk about shattering the glass ceiling.
So when Anonymous 4 disbanded last year, fans wondered who might fill its shoes. The answer came in Trio Mediaeval. The triumvirate of Scandinavian sopranos debuts in Denver on Thursday at Gates Concert Hall, kicking off a U.S. tour that will include the inauguration of the “Early Music in Weill” series in New York’s Carnegie Hall on Dec. 10.
“I think we were very, very lucky that Anonymous 4 opened the door for women singing medieval music,” said Anna Maria Friman, 33, the trio’s youngest member. “They did a fantastic thing when they managed to create interest in medieval music, which made it much easier for us to get into that niche. Our audiences are already familiar with the repertoire.”
But to compare the two ensembles too closely diminishes the fresh take Trio Mediaeval brings to a cappella medieval music from England and France, Norwegian medieval ballads and songs, and contemporary works.
“Because we’re performing music that was written mainly for men to sing, we’re taking it out of context,” said Friman, a Swede, who is researching modern performance of medieval music as part of her Ph.D. studies at the University of York in England. “There are so many ways to approach the music.
“We’re talking about polyphonic religious music that was part of the liturgy of the time,” she said. “There was no audience then, but we sing for an audience today. We have put the music into something totally different, the concert hall.”
Friman said the group finds the music at once challenging and liberating.
“In a way, the lack of evidence of how music really sounded in its time presents the opportunity to be creative, to re-create, even to do something entirely new.”
Indeed, Friman said that she and her colleagues – Linn Andrea Fuglseth, 36, and Torunn Østrem Ossum, 41 – approach medieval music as if it were contemporary music.
“I suppose my research helps inform us about how women today make artistic decisions about performing music,” Friman said. “We don’t ignore what we know about early music, but we often choose a different direction.
“All of us in the trio want the audience to be able to create their own experience when they come to our concerts,” she said. “We don’t want to get stuck in a certain sound world, and we don’t want to force a specific message.
“That’s why we don’t emphasize the text of the music we sing, because it’s restrictive. Instead, we want to allow people to go into their own world with the music … not to have to listen to yet another message.”
To drive the point home, the trio’s latest of three ECM recordings – Stella Maris, released Sept. 27 – offers no translation to the Latin texts of 12th- and 13th-century chants. Denver concertgoers will get a taste of the CD when the trio performs one of its selections, “Quem Trina Polluit.”
“We’ll be singing some English carols, Norwegian hymns and also some contemporary pieces, all related to the holiday time,” Friman said. “Some people who are into early music feel that contemporary music is hard to listen to. But the composers who have written for the trio understand our sound.
“I think it’s a varied program. It should be fun, but also meditative.”
Founded by Fuglseth in Oslo, Norway, in 1997, Trio Mediaeval credits intense periods of work at the prominent Hilliard Summer Festival for its early success. Since then, its performances and CDs have received gushing praise from leading critics who can’t seem to get enough of the close-knit group.
“What makes us work so well is that each of us has been able to keep the qualities of our own individual voices within the trio, and that our voices happen to meld well together,” Friman said. “We are very lucky that we don’t have to talk very much in rehearsals … at least not about music.
“We never disagree about interpretation. We trust each other so much that we’re all happy to go along with whatever one of us comes up with.”
Trio Mediaeval
MEDIEVAL AND CONTEMPORARY| Gates Concert Hall, Newman Center for the Performing Arts; 2344 E. Iliff Ave., 7:30 p.m. Thursday | $25-$55|Call 303-871-7720
