BIANCIARDI
Missa Octum Vocum
Coro da camera Festina Lente/Schola Gregoriana (Federico
del Sordo - organ)/Complesso Armonia Antiqua/Michele Gasbarro -director
Warner Fonit 8573 81476-2 [54.13]
Crotchet
This is a winner and I recommend it enthusiastically to collectors of
16th Century ecclesiastical music and, more especially, to anyone
whose collection does not yet have an example of this repertoire.
There is a mass of fine music waiting in libraries to be brought back to
active life, and this is as worthy a representative of their many forgotten
composers as you will find. Francesco Bianciardi of Siena (1570-1607)
died at 37 'when his star began to shine brightly'. He had found an equilibrium
between Palestrina's strictness and innovative inventiveness. The poly-choral
Mass (1605) reconstructed here has brilliant choral writing but kept subservient
to liturgical requirements.
Peter Grahame Woolf