This review is the fuller version which I promised in my February
2009
Download
Roundup. It’s especially for the benefit of those who haven’t
yet discovered my
monthly
download roundups. I stated in a review of Duarte Lôbo’s
8-part Requiem on Helios (Masterpieces of Portuguese Polyphony,
CDH55138) that CDGIM205 contained the same 8-part Requiem and
CDGIM028 the other, 6-part Requiem. Both recordings are, in fact,
of the 6-part work and, thus, neither competes with the Helios.
CDGIM205 offers a two-for-one set of the Lôbo, Cardoso and
Victoria Requiems, plus music by Alonso Lobo, and CDGIM028 has
the same recording of the Lôbo coupled with the same composer’s
Missa Vox clamantis. Both are available to download from the Gimell
website; I can vouch for the high quality of the CD-equivalent
wma version. Far from duplicating any item on that Helios CD,
either of these versions of Lôbo’s more mature six-part
Requiem
should be your next port of call if you followed my advice to
buy the Helios last year. If not, you could purchase it alongside
either of these Gimell CDs or downloads and still have change
from £20. Downloading the Gimell will save even more – but don’t
dream of paying £7.99 to download the Helios from iTunes, when
you can buy the CD for just over £5.
While the Lôbo
Requiem appears
on both Gimell sets, the chief attraction of CDGIM205 for
most purchasers will be the Victoria
Requiem and here
the Tallis Scholars face some stiff competition from The
Sixteen/Harry Christophers on Coro, the mp3 version of which
I made my
Download
of the Month in October 2008. The CD equivalent is actually
an SACD (CORSACD16033).
We don’t seem
previously to have reviewed this Coro recording as a CD or
download on Musicweb International, though we carried a review
of a live performance as part of the ensemble’s 2006 tour – see
RJF’s appreciative
recommendation to
attend any performances in the readers’ vicinity, “regardless
of whatever your previous experience of this music and this
type of singing might be.”
For many Victoria’s
Requiem is
a quintessential work of the Spanish renaissance. Don’t look
for the dramatic power of the Mozart or Verdi
Requiems:
with only parts of
Dies iræ set here, the overall
mood is one of tranquil grief and quiet hope – a mood which
Fauré and Duruflé were to capture again in their settings
and to which both The Sixteen and The Tallis Scholars are
well attuned.
Everything comes
together on the Coro CD: music, singing and recording. The
performance seems just right – moving the music along at
quite a brisk pace yet allowing space for contemplation and
never sounding hurried. The instrumental accompaniment, where
it occurs, is discrete and unobtrusive; it includes the use
of the bajón, one of the ancestors of the bassoon. The recording,
too, even in ordinary stereo, sounds excellent.
There isn’t a
great deal of difference between the Coro and Gimell recordings. The
Sixteen sing the music noticeably more briskly throughout,
thereby creating swings and roundabouts. This is, after
all, a setting of the Mass for the Dead, so The Tallis Scholars’ more
reverential tempi are certainly appropriate; on the other
hand The Sixteen may be thought more attuned to listeners
of the present day, without destroying the dignity and beauty
of the music, since 21
st-century life moves at
a greater pace than that of the early 17
th-century. As
so often, timings mean less than the overall quality of the
performance, though I mention them out of interest; both
versions have the power to transport me – the Gimell never
drags nor does the Coro ever seem unduly hasty.
Both discs are
well filled and well recorded: the wma version of the Gimell
is fully the equivalent of the CD and there is also a less
expensive 320k mp3 version, which I have always found to
be more than acceptable from Gimell. The Coro will be essential
for those who must have surround-sound or who want only the
Victoria; it also comes as an mp3 download from eMusic, classicsonline
and theclassicalshop, in 320k format in the last two cases. theclassicalshop
will provide the Coro booklet, too, with very informative
notes, texts and translations.
The Gimell version
of the Victoria also comes on a single CD (CDGIM012) but,
with the sole addition of the 3-minute
tædet animam meam to
the Victoria offered on CDGIM205, and an overall playing
time of only 47 minutes, it hardly seems competitive.
The Sixteen also
offer
tædet animan meam – they are actually slightly
slower than The Tallis Scholars here – and several shorter
pieces by Victoria, including an affective performance of
the funeral motet
Versa est in luctum – slightly faster
than the Oxford Camerata on Naxos, but equally effective.
That Oxford Camerata
CD, on Naxos 8.553240, offers good small-scale performances
of Victoria’s
Missa O magnum mysterium and Duarte
Lôbo’s 1621
8-part Requiem Mass, i.e. the one
on the Helios CD, not the one performed on Gimell. An alternative
coupling entitled
Portuguese Requiem Masses (8.550682)
offers the same 1621
Requiem coupled with Cardoso’s
of 1625 – i.e. the work offered on CD2 of CDGIM205 – a tempting
bargain except that the 2-CD Gimell set costs less than the
price of two Naxos discs.
I can see that
I’m painting myself into a corner from which I can escape
only by recommending that you buy or download both the Coro
and Gimell recordings or, at the very least, the Coro Victoria
and the Gimell single-CD Lôbo, which may seem an unreasonable
recommendation in these economically straitened times until
you calculate that the 16 tracks of the Coro from eMusic
will cost you less than £4 (£7.99 from theclassicalshop or
classicsonline; £6.99 in 256k sound from amazon.co.uk) and
the mp3 version of either Gimell recording just £7.99 for
mp3 or £9.99 for CD-quality.
I’ve concentrated
on the music on CD1 of CDGIM205, but that by Cardoso and
Alonso Lobo (no relation) on CD2 and the performances of
it are equally desirable, very well sung indeed and excellently
recorded. The Naxos version of the Cardoso – like The Sixteen’s
Victoria, generally slightly faster than that of The Tallis
Scholars – is very good but the Gimell has the edge and the
Naxos omits the concluding Responsory
Libera me.
Both sets of Gimell
notes, by Peter Phillips, are informative and readable. Both
sets come with full texts and idiomatic translations and
the full booklet and artwork are available also to download
and print out.
As usual, both
Gimell booklets have appropriately and attractively illustrated
covers – the 2-CD
Requiem with El Greco’s
Burial
of Count Orgaz, the single Lôbo CD with Zurbarán’s
Funeral
of Saint Bonaventure. The employment of the El
Greco is especially appropriate for a set containing Victoria’s
Requiem,
since both were foreigners employed in Spain and both had
their names altered: the Italian Vittoria’s name was easily
adapted but poor Domenikos Theotoukopolos became first
Il
Greco, ‘the Greek’, in Italy and later
El Greco,
a combination of the Spanish definite article and his Italian
nickname.
My only complaint
about these two Gimell issues is that the real enthusiast
will buy both and end up with two versions of the same performance
of the Lôbo
Requiem but the inexpensive 2-for-1 nature
of CDGIM205 partly makes up for that. Buy the 2-CD set by
all means, but I wouldn’t willingly forgo the beautiful
Missa
Vox clamantis on the single disc.
At the same time,
I can’t resist mentioning the virtues of an older recording
by
The Sixteen from 2002, of motets and hymns
by Victoria,
The Call of the Beloved (COR16007),
which Jonathan Woolf has already dubbed a marvellous disc – see
review. Add to either version of the
Requiem this
recording of Victoria in more festive mode, the Tallis Scholars’ recording
of the
Tenebræ Responsories, on Gimell (CDGIM022 – also
available to download) and one of the Hyperion Westminster
Cathedral recordings, and you have the makings of a first-class
collection of Victoria’s music.
If you’re looking
to extend your acquaintance with Duarte Lôbo or Manuel Cardoso,
try Queen’s College, Oxford, directed by Owen Rees in Lôbo’s
Missa
de beata Virgine (
Cæli Porta, Guild GMCD7323 – see
my recent
review)
or their earlier recording of Cardoso’s
Missa Paradisi
Portas (GMCD7296 – see Glyn Pursglove’s
review),
both coupled with other 17
th-century Iberian music.
Nevertheless,
it’s the
Requiems and the associated music on the
2-CD set which appeal most. If the purpose of the
Requiem Mass
is to assist the soul’s passage to heaven, all the recordings
of the late flowerings of the Iberian
Requiem mentioned
in this review certainly achieve that metaphorically.
Brian Wilson
The Tallis Scholars/Peter
Phillips 
[79:33
+ 76:05] 
