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Recording

Jean Guyot: Te Deum laudamus

Cinquecentro Renaissance Vokal
63:31
Hyperion CDA68180

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]ew to me as a composer, it is perhaps unsurprising that Jean Guyot turns out to be a composer of considerable originality and genius – I have learned almost to expect this as I encounter new names from the charmed world of Renaissance Franco-Flemish composition. Known as ‘Castileti’ due to the fact he was born in Châtelet, after some youthful travels, Guyot seems to have spent most of his life in Liège, composing works of entrancing richness and originality such as we hear on this CD. Of the large body of work he surely composed, some chansons in four and eight parts, several motets and a mass survive.

Like the eight-part chansons, many of which favour the lower voices, these motets are texturally dense and in the flowing post-Josquin style – he clearly admired Josquin, writing a twelve-part version of the master’s six-part Benedictus. Like the Scottish composer of music in many parts, Robert Carver, he studied at the University of Louvain and may have known the music of Brumel, while there is definitely something of the darkness of the music of Gombert here too. I always enjoy the rich, blended sound which Cinquecento produce as well as their intelligent readings of the music they perform, and they are the ideal advocates of Guyot’s wonderful music, bringing a superbly professional gleam to his densely scored motets. These are works of exquisite beauty and striking originality, while the concluding Te Deum laudamus  is a towering masterpiece of cumulative power and expressiveness, and a work which in Cinquecento’s persuasive performance I found intensely moving. Beautiful music, superb singing, a vibrantly clear recording, fascinating and beautifully written programme notes – it doesn’t get much better than this!

D. James Ross

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Recording

Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks vol 5

Blue Heron, Scott Metcalfe
55:34
BHCD 1007
Hunt, Mason, Sturmy, anonymous & Sarum plainchant

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ith this CD, Blue Heron and Scott Metcalfe reach the end of a ground-breaking collaboration with leading musicologist Nick Sandon recording ‘lost’ masterpieces from the Peterhouse Partbooks. As Professor Sandon has restored this unique musical treasury, notably recomposing the missing tenor parts, and published the music with Antico Edition, Blue Heron have recorded some of the finest works in performances which have consistently impressed me with their vibrant sound, poise, energy and musicality. In doing so, this highly important project, one of the most important early choral projects of our time, has unearthed a series of masterly composers hitherto virtually unknown. So it is in this latest volume with Hugh Sturmy, Robert Hunt, John Mason and perhaps most tantalizing of all the unnamed composer of the mysterious Missa sine nomine, which compounds its mystery by being based on a chant also not satisfactorily identified. Sharing some musical features with the earlier Eton Choirbook, the music of the Peterhouse Partbooks are of a similarly superlative standard, with a consistent richness and inventiveness unmatched anywhere else in the English choral tradition. The spotlighting of the breathtakingly beautiful music of Nicholas Ludford from this source has proved to be by no means an isolated flash in the pan, while the highly individual and superbly consistent motets recorded here are, if anything, capped by the strikingly original anonymous Mass with its string of musical surprises. Such is the authority of Scott Metcalfe and his singers with this repertoire that they negotiate even the most daringly challenging and unexpected passages with utter confidence, and, as previously, with a delicious blend of expressiveness and seemingly inexorable forward momentum. We should be very grateful both to Professor Sandon and this superb group of Amercan singers and their director, as well as the project’s far-sighted sponsors, for opening this unique window on one of the finest treasures of Renaissance English choral music. I am sure all concerned have other important work to be getting on with, but I for one would be thrilled to hear that the Peterhouse Project had been extended, even if only for one more CD – meanwhile, rush out and invest in the five that are already available!

D. James Ross

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Recording

Threads of gold: Music from the Golden Age

York Minster Choir, Robert Sharpe
Regent REGCD488
Byrd Ne irascaris, O Lord, make Thy servant Elizabeth, Praise our Lord all ye gentiles, Tribulationes civitatum, Vide Domine afflictionem; Orlando Gibbons Glorious and powerful God, Great Lord of lords, O God, the King of Glory; Mundy Evening Service ‘in medio chori’; Tallis In manus tuas, O sacrum convivium, O salutaris hostia, Videte miraculum

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a radiant recording of glorious music, sung by a fine provincial English cathedral choir right at the top of its game. The programme is a combination of unaccompanied works and those requiring accompaniment, is also a combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar, and is furthermore a combination of pieces intended for the Anglican liturgy, the Roman Catholic liturgy, and for domestic performance. Readers like me who prefer their performances to be historically informed will immediately wonder nowadays about a substantial Anglican male choir (17 trebles, 4 each of countertenors, tenors and basses) singing, in a generous cathedral acoustic, the three Latin pieces by Byrd, which were intended for domestic performance; but these works are sung with clarity and piercing intensity. Credit for these qualities goes to the performers for projecting their own lines while balancing and blending with their colleagues; and to the Director of Music, Robert Sharpe, for his judicious choices of tempi. I possess many (four and upwards) recordings of each of the Latin pieces by Byrd, and he and his singers do not miss or gloss over a single one of Byrd’s many harmonic or melodic or rhythmic felicities. The choir sang the first track Vide Domine, afflictionem meam  as the anthem on a recent broadcast of Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3. It came over most impressively in that programme, and here it gets the disc off to the best possible start; the work concludes with a cadence that is stunning even by Byrd’s standards, and notwithstanding a field that includes three other wonderful recordings, York’s stands out, not least for their execution of that cadence. Another Byrdian moment to treasure is the fleeting prominence given by the singers to the open fifth between the two uppermost parts at the syllable “[irasca]ris” just after their respective entries near the beginning of Ne irascaris. Passing to works by other composers, in Tallis’s Videte miraculum  they show they can shape and sustain a work of nearly ten minutes’ duration. At the opposite end of the liturgical spectrum, Mundy’s Service is incandescent, as is Tallis’s O salutaris hostia  in a more pensive way. All three of Gibbons’s works are verse anthems, with seemly solos sung appropriately to the ethos of the music and the Anglican liturgy, underpinned by excellent accompaniments – understated but very much “there” – from David Pipe, not least throughout Glorious and powerful God in what must be its fastest version on disc! Byrd’s searing symphonic three-movement sacred song Tribulationes civitatum  brings the record to an impassioned but dignified conclusion. This disc is a huge credit to the boys, layclerks, conductor, organist, producer, engineers and editors, not forgetting John Lees for his fine notes in the excellent booklet.

Richard Turbet

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Recording

Telemann: Reformations-Oratorium 1755

Regula Mühlemann, Daniel Johannsen, Benjamin Appl, Stephan MacLeod STBarB, Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Reinhard Goebel
60:24
Sony Classics 8 89853 73872 4

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s everyone knows, 2017 marks a big anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation; what non-specialists may not realise is that that critical event is marked every year within the Lutheran church. It will come as no surprise, then, that special works were created especially throughout the baroque period to celebrate the festival, and that Telemann was among the most prolific of composers. This world premiere recording presents an oratorio from 1755 which intersperses recitatives and arias for four allegorical figures (Peace, Devotion, Religion and History, in descending order of voice range) with hymns and choruses. The recording provoked something of a philosophical discussion in my mind, since I enjoyed the singing a lot (especially the soloists), and I loved the music and wondered at the still fertile and creative mind of its septuagenarian composer, and yet the modern instruments just sounded so inappropriate, especially in recitatives where half the time I could not even work out what the conductor was striving for by asking the players of whichever instruments they were (yes, even my keen ears struggled to identify them on occasion!) to produce the sounds they did… Given a “proper baroque band”, there is some ravishing music here that could easily make its way into standard repertoire. While I honestly believe that all music should be available to all people, I also wonder if there is seriously no repertoire that these particular forces could more appropriately engage with.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Cortellini: Le Messe – edizione integrale

198:26 (3 CDs in a wallet)
Tactus TC 560380
12 masses involving 11 choirs and directors

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his comprehensive set of CDs recording of all the Masses by the Bolognese composer Camillo Cortellini (1561-1630) is a real community effort and, with most of the enormous cast list of choirs coming from Bologna and district, a testimony to the active choral scene in that city. Although with music of the late 16th and early 17th century it is just conceivable that all the musicians could be collaborating on some huge polychoral scores, this is not the case, and in fact each ensemble takes on individual masses. So far, so good, but sadly the quality of the singing is very variable ranging from the pretty woeful to the not bad. The fact that they each take their turn has the advantage that you are not stuck with any one choir for too long, but the disadvantage is that some of the performances are really not very easy to listen to and don’t really do their composer justice. And this is another snag. In the performances presented here with voices and organ, it is not clear that Cortellini lives up to the claims made for his music in the programme notes. It is thoroughly competent and melodious, but I didn’t feel he was the lost genius that clearly the organizers of this ambitious project felt he was. Cortellini was a predecessor of Monteverdi in the employ of the Gonzagas, so I am prepared to believe that there is more to his music than is apparent here. I admire the spirit behind this ambitious project, but we miss the assurance of a single group, who would have become thoroughly conversant with Cortellini’s idiom over the course of recording all this music, and would have perhaps been more persuasive advocates of his virtues as a composer. Frankly most of the singing here just isn’t up to scratch.

3444D. James Ross

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Recording

Vecchi: Requiem

Graindelavoix, Björn Schmelzer
67:00
Glossa GCD P32113
+de La Hèle  Kyrie, Sanctus & Agnus Dei (Missa Praeter rerum seriem), Duarte Lobo  Agnus Dei (Missa Dum aurora) & Ruimonte  Agnus Dei (Missa Ave Virgo Sanctissima)

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f you like your early 17th-century music sung as a certain hard core of aficionados believe 15th-century music was sung, then this is for you. By this I mean the earthy delivery, swooping pitching, constant wobbling ornaments familiar from Graindelavoix’s previous recordings of music such as the Messe de Notre Dame, applied to the music of the late Renaissance. Well actually it is not as simple as that. The sections for solo voices seem to inhabit a much more Renaissance world, although they still use the glissandi and wobbly ornaments, which had they ever been widely employed, seem to me upsettingly out of place in High Renaissance vocal lines. Meanwhile the sections for full choir are something of an evolutionary throw-back.

The best I can say about the group’s approach to this music is that it is challengingly unconventional and provides a strikingly alternative view of late Renaissance polyphony. Even in their own controversial terms these performances seem to me to have technical shortcomings, in that the singers are sometimes far from unified in their movements and there are occasional scatterings of concluding consonants for which even an amateur choir would be rebuked. As the musical and philosophical offspring of groups such as the Ensemble Organum whose groundbreaking work I admired, I want to like Graindelavoix’s recent recordings more, but there is an intellectual fuzziness and a musical slap-dash quality about them which runs quite contrary to their rigorous predecessors.

D. James Ross

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Recording

Beethoven: Missa Solemnis

Carolyn Sampson, Marianne Beate Kielland, Thomas Walker, David Wilson-Johnson SATB, Cappella Amsterdam, Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Daniel Reuss
75:03
Glossa GCD 921124

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n an ideal world, I would not have had to review this recording. The Missa Solemnis was a set work in first year at university and, frankly, as an 18 year old, I just was not ready to appreciate such a monumental piece of art, from any perspective. Now in my fifties and almost a regular listener to Radio 4, I find myself better able to cope with the challenge and, having worked my way through the Haydn and Hummel masses courtesy of the excellent Chandos series, then the Beethoven C major mass  (which I had once sight-read in a concert in Glasgow, which was very much a white-knuckle ride!), now the epic and once-daunting creation seems not only manageable and more easily understood, it is also a pleasure to sit back and enjoy. Everything about this disc guarantees intellectual satisfaction, too – the choral work is excellent, with unanimity of declamation and crispness of fugal entries, and the orchestra produces some glorious sounds (I feel I must highlight the sparkling contributions of solo flautist and violinist, but they are in splendid company throughout – the list of wind players reads like a Who’s Who? of HIP giants!), but then above them the four soloists rise heroically, not in a “listen to me; I can sing much louder than all of you put together” sort of way, but rather in a “didn’t Beethoven build this structure with such absolute mastery?” sort of way, allowing them to project their all-important contributions to so many massive moments in a single work. There are not many large choral works that bring me pleasure; I have learned to love Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, and I do enjoy listening to Eliot Gardiner’s recording of the Verdi Requiem; it seems now as if I have no choice but to add Reuss’ Missa Solemnis  to that list, as I will be enjoying this recording for a long, long time!

Brian Clark

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Recording

Vivaldi: Les orphelines de Venise

Les cris de Paris, Geoffroy Jourdain
65:05
Ambronay AMY047
Concerto Madrigalesco RV129, Sinfonia al Santo Sepolcro RV169, Kyrie RV587, Gloria RV589, Credo RV591, Magnificat RV610a

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his disc revisits the “How was Vivaldi’s church music performed without men?” debate. Before I comment on Jourdain’s approach to it, I must first of all simply commend the performances; both singing and playing are absolutely first rate, with a glorious choral sound, agile and stylish soloists and very fine instrumental contributions from all concerned. The programme is built around a Venetian “messa intiera” (Kyrie, Gloria and Credo; apparently the Sanctus and Agnus Dei would have been recited by priests during instrumental music), and the rich variety of styles employed by Vivaldi is notable – I was struck by accented bass notes of the Crucifixus, for example. Jourdain has spent a long time researching and thinking about Vivaldi’s SATB church music, and come to the conclusion that the surviving scores are notated in that format to make it more available to performers outside the ospedale network; he thinks the normal modus operandi&nbsp where he directed the choir was that the upper three voices were performed as writ, with the bass sung an octave higher by a second group of altos (more often that not in unison with col basso violas!) All of this sounds reasonable, but my eyebrow arched at his contention that when the tenor part is “more interesting” than the soprano line, it should be transposed up an octave (with the happy consequence that doing so sometimes corrects Vivaldi’s naughty consecutive fifths). Who defines “more interesting”? And I worry about choral conductors who seem to think that “Joe Public” only listens to the soprano line (I’ve worked for and with a few!) This need not put anyone off acquiring the disc – as I said at the beginning, it’s a wonderfully accomplished recording that deserves to be widely enjoyed.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Cavalli: Vespero della Beata Vergine Maria (1675), Antifone Mariane e Sonate (1656)

Coro Claudio Monteverdi di Crema, La Pifarescha, Bruno Gini
62:32
Dynamic CDS7782

Any major recording of church music by Francesco Cavalli is of interest. In spite of several fine recordings over the past twenty years (including a lovely 1997 account by Seicento and the Parley of Instruments on Hyperion of his Messa Concertata CDA 66970), this key figure in musical history remains under-recorded, and the present performance of music for voices and instruments from two of his major collections makes a valuable contribution. On the positive side, the large vocal and instrumental forces and the opulent acoustic produce a very grand impression, and the episodes for the full forces are extremely impressive. We also have the nowadays obligatory cornetto fireworks. Things are less happy when things thin out and the spotlight falls on solo voices. Here there is some stabbing wildly at notes, and in chant episodes there are signs of nerves as voices don’t quite do what the singers intended. These moments are uncomfortable, but the authority of the massed passages more than makes up for them, as does the interest of hearing such generous helpings of Cavalli’s neglected church music.

D. James Ross

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Categories
Recording

Bach: St Matthew Passion

James Gilchrist Evangelista, Stephan Loges Jesus, Hannah Morrison, Zoë Brookshaw, Charlotte Ashley, Reginald Mobley, Eleanor Minney, Hugo Hymas, Ashley Riches, Alex Ashworth, Jonathan Sells SSSASTBBB, Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, Trinity Boys Choir, Sir John Eliot Gardiner
161:04 (2 CDs in a hard-covered booklet)
SDG725

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his recording was made at a live performance in the Duomo at Pisa last September, at which I happened to be present, and has been splendidly edited. Gardiner was saying to his musicians that this was going to be his last ever St Matthew, and certainly this was the last performance of a whole series that they had given over the previous months. In some ways this is vintage Gardiner; there are two choirs of 6.3.3.3 – so 30 singers plus the cantus firmus from the Trinity Boys Choir and bands with 3.3.2.2.1 strings – but what makes it such a good performance is that all the singers sang off copy, so the absolute unanimity of the words projected into the space is telling, as was the hieratic way that singers from the different cori moved into position to sing with the different instrumental ensembles.

Apart from the peerless James Gilchrist and the commanding Stephan Loges, all other solo roles were sung by members of the choir, revealing what a talented group of singers Gardiner commands. Among the six sopranos, Hannah Morrison is outstanding for her liquid, floating tone, and Eleanor Minney sings one of the best performances of Erbarme dich  I have heard. The clear-voiced tenor of Hugo Hymas seems effortless in the high tessitura of his arias, and Gardiner can choose a more bass bass (Alex Ashworth) for Gebt mir  while giving Gerne will ich mich  and Komm, süßes Kreuz  to the lighter-voiced Ashley Riches, reserving the dark-toned Jonathan Sells for Judas and Am Abend  and Mache dich. Singers like this are much better than the old ‘soloists’ at getting inside the music, and understanding the instruments with which they are singing, and Gardiner at least has this right in not dividing his ‘soloists’ from his choir: in Bach, the soloists are the choir, boosted by groups of ripienists, and this unanimity of choral and solo sound make this Matthew especially well integrated.

In a performance like this, in a substantial space, it would be churlish to criticise such a coherent presentation for what it doesn’t claim to be, but I missed hearing the bass voice in coro I who has sung the part of Jesus also singing Komm, süßes Kreuz, and wonder about the constant criss-crossing of singers to sing with the other band that disregards Bach’s division between the cori.

In his notes – substantially drawn from his 2013 book, Music in the Castle of Heaven  – Gardiner writes interestingly on Bach’s purpose, drawing on the deeply felt Lutheranism he brought to his writing, and how he sought to convey the drama by gathering his hearers into the sound-world of the liturgical event rather than performing at them, as if in an opera house. In modern performances with large forces, where the audience do not have the chorale melodies in their bones, it is difficult to recapture the electric atmosphere of such a liturgical event. But if you want a large-scale performance that avoids the monumental ‘oratorio-style’ of the past while giving due weight to the music, this would be a good choice.

In over-all terms, this is the best of Gardiner’s Matthew Passions. The balance between voices and instruments, not always perfect in that big acoustic in the flesh, has been beautifully captured by the recording editor. The tempi are ideal, with no racing through ‘just because we can’. This is a strong and mature performance, and – should it indeed be the last – will be a fine testimony to Gardiner’s style and intentions in the Matthew Passion.

David Stancliffe