Tag: Renaissance

I. Dalheim, K. Mulders, P. Bertin, D. Sagastume, V. Sordo, Ll. Vilamajö, D. Hernández, M. Savazza, Ch. Immler, P. Stas, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Herspèrion XXI, Jordi Savall
76:06
AVSA9922

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] find this disc tiresome. It contains fine music by one of the best composers of his day, performed by capable musicians. Yet if it were a meal, it would come over-seasoned to conceal an underlying blandness. There is too much contrived beauty or animation or suavity at the expense of the music itself – a sort of early music for airports. Bells are so ubiquitous that they become comical in their incongruity. Then to begin dolorous choral works there is the cliché of the funereal drum, beside the rather desperate jollity of some of the instrumental pieces. Sustinuimus is a lovely motet overlarded with an unnecessary accompaniment of assorted winds and strings, bowed and plucked. Innsbruch  is downright slushy, with too many different arrangements crammed into the one piece. Worst of all is Quis dabit  in which the fussy arrangement distracts from the merits of this fine if doleful work: shades of Glenn Miller from the accompanying instrumental ensemble, irritating percussion, fidgety alternating solo and full vocal passages, and tastefully exaggerated lamenting on the part of the singers. Isaac’s music can stand tall without this overindulgent treatment. The two following tracks are cut from the same cloth: more bells bong in the exquisite and undeserving Sancti spiritus, then Angeli, archangeli  rambles on while the sonneur has a field day. And so on, past an achingly, self-consciously beautiful Circumdederunt me  to the final track with the full String of Pearls treatment in the accompaniment, further fidgeting between solo and full choral passages, and enough tings and dings from the sonneur to render Evelyn Glennie envious. In all reluctant humility I entirely understand that many people will find a disc of this sort most attractive, and if it is going to draw folk to Isaac’s music, as presumably Sting’s disc drew folk to Dowland, then well and good; there is room for this sort of presentation, so long as there are recordings of Isaac’s music that let it speak, or sing, for itself, rather than as some in the 21st-century wish to attire it. Oh, noisy bells, be dumb.

Richard Turbet

Dufay Ensemble, Eckehard Kiem
224:50 (4 CDs in a plastic box)
Brilliant Classics 95365

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]acobus Vaet had the misfortune to fall out of favour twice. A prominent composer in the middle of the 16th century, he ended up as imperial Kapellmeister in Vienna, although like all but a handful of his contemporaries he lapsed into obscurity within fifty years. Curious then that it was Vaet whom Friedrich Blume chose to feature beside the great Josquin in the opening 1929 volume of his seminal Das Chorwerk. Sadly where the latter went on to be completely rehabilitated, the former somewhat sank back into obscurity. This four CD set of his choral works, a drop in the ocean of his large output but a generous helping nonetheless, serves to outline his strengths and weaknesses by providing a representative cross-section of his sacred music. This proves not to be an unalloyed delight for a couple of reasons. The Roches’ authoritative Dictionary of Early Music  describes Vaet’s early work as ‘solidly imitative’, and this is true of a fair percentage of the music recorded here, before we get into the later, more daring repertoire influenced by Lassus (and perhaps, as the programme note claims, the Venetians, although I found this harder to pin down). The polychoral repertoire is to my ear the most successful, particularly the Lassus-like setting of Ferdnande imperio, while the rather extravagant claims made in Peter Quantrill’s programme note for his mastery of dissonance seem to me a little overblown. The other slight drawback to this set is that the singing is not quite as confidently accurate as it might be – perhaps the main reason why the project has appeared on the budget Brilliant Boxes label. A lot of the singing sounds tentative and a bit workaday, and there is some distinctly uncomfortable intonation. This is a pity, but together with the decidedly patchy quality of the music it makes this set an informative resource rather than a listening delight. Having said that, many of the works here are receiving their premiere recordings, so anybody genuinely particularly interested in the music of Vaet or more generally in the repertoire of the Renaissance Viennese Hofkapelle will want to invest.

D. James Ross

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

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

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