Secretz regretz in the Church of St. Laurence in Janakkala, the 1st of July, 2018

This year the Janakkala Baroque Festival ended in a truly stupendous performance in the Church of St. Laurence (from 1520) in Janakkala: “Secretz regretz”, a concert whose music, under the title “Medieval and renaissance female destinies”, was collected by Tuuli Lindeberg and Anna-Maaria Oramo. Soprano Tuuli Lindeberg sung and Elizabeth Rumsay (fiddle and viola d’arco), Maija Lampela (viola da gamba) and Anna-Maaria Oramo (clavicymbalum and virginal) played.

I cannot praise enough Tuuli Lindeberg’s divine voice that reached its full potential in these songs composed from the 12^th century to the 16^th century. The medieval Church of St. Laurence suited perfectly this type of music. The acoustics of the church vaults made Lindeberg’s voice echo as if it came from another dimension, as the voice of angels.

Since the concert consisted of songs from several centuries, it had a lot of different type of songs. The evening began with a troubadour song from Southern France I instantly fell in love with. It was a so called morning song (alba) from the 12^th century “En un vergier sotz fuella d’albespi”. It is the oldest remaining complete alba poem written in a European language. It is not known, who wrote the words for this Occitan language poem and the melody has been lost, so it was now performed to the melody of another morning song “Reis glorios” by Guirault de Borneilh. What an absolutely incredible start for a concert!

Totally different, but equally lovely jewel of the concert, was a poem from Northern France, sung in the local dialect – a so called Trouvère song – “Predez i garde” by Guillaume d’Amiens from the 13^th century. I also liked the song that had given the name to this concert, that is, Pierre de la Rue’s (1460-1518) “Secretz regretz”.

It is difficult to choose an absolute favourite out of great performances, but perhaps the winner of the evening was this time the final song “Adieu mes amour” by Josquin Desprez. Despite its name it is not a farewell song to a lover but to a patron. I did not let this tiny prosaic detail disturb my eyes watering, when the stunning musicians one by one left the stage and only the divine Tuuli Lindeberg and her ethereal voice remained.  

The Church of St. Laurence

The artists