This recording is based on a concert programme which Armonico
Consort present interspersed with plainchant and violin improvisation.
Here we just have the core of those concerts, a series of works
by what the sleeve-note describes as ‘composers who wore
their hearts on their sleeves and saw their emotions laid bare.’ Suspicious
as I always am of the concept that creative artists lay their
emotions out for inspection on the musical stave, the printed
page or the canvas, I prefer to think of this as a concert of
beautiful and reflective music, sung in a manner conducive to
emphasising that reflective beauty, which is both the strength
of the recording and the reason why I would not recommend it
to all listeners.
I suspect that many will purchase the CD for the sake of the
Allegri
Miserere, prominently advertised on the front
cover. It so happens that I have been listening to several recordings
of this ubiquitous work recently, which may account for my reservations
about its performance here. Armonico Consort bring out all the
beauty of the music, but I’m not sure that they completely
capture its pathos. As the booklet reminds us, it is a penitential
psalm, particularly associated with Lent and Holy Week, so the
beauty is only half the story. Listen to the Tallis Scholars,
who have made no fewer than three recordings of the work and
you will find a different, added perspective.
Their first recording, originally made for Classics for Pleasure,
is available from Gimell on GIMSE401, coupled with Palestrina’s
Missa
Papæ Marcelli and Mundy’s
Vox Patris cælestis,
at mid price. See
review by
John Quinn. Their second recording, on CD (CDGIM994) and DVD
(GIMDP903 or GIMDN904),
Live in Rome, was made,
again with the Marcellus Mass and other music by Palestrina,
in 1994 - see
review by
John France (Recording of the Month). Finally, they recorded
two versions - with and without decoration - on CDGIM041, once
again with Palestrina’s
Missa Papæ Marcelli.
I am currently working on an article to celebrate the 30
th birthday
of the Scholars’ own label, Gimell; you may wish to wait
until that goes online before plumping for any of these Gimell
recordings.
The Tallis Scholars recorded the whole
Miserere, in which
complete form it takes around 13 minutes. What Armonico Consort
offer us is an abridged 7½-minute version. I’m not
sure which verses are omitted, because there are no texts with
this CD, which has to be regarded as a major shortcoming. The
detailed descriptions of the works in the booklet, good as those
are, are no substitute for texts and translations. At worst,
they could have been included as a pdf document on the CD or
made available online. When EMI included an abridged version
of the Allegri on a recent recording,
Essential Renaissance (6
885922), they made the omissions clear in the booklet, and the
absence of texts on that recording is at least partially excusable
by its being a super-budget 2-CD issue.
I could fill the rest of this review with recommendations of
recordings of the Allegri. Let me mention just one more, from
The Sixteen, directed by Harry Christophers on their own label,
Coro. On COR16014, it’s coupled, in direct rivalry with
the Gimell/Tallis Scholars, with Palestrina’s
Missa
Papæ Marcelli - see Tony Haywood’s
recommendation.
If you wish to discover some of the other music which Allegri
composed, The Sixteen oblige on
Music for the Sistine Chapel
(COR16047) - see my October, 2008, Download
Roundup.
All these recordings place Allegri in the context of music from
his near contemporaries, which you may well prefer. The juxtaposition
of old, not so old, and new on the Signum CD works well, but
I know that some listeners prefer to keep their musical periods
separate.
Byrd’s
Ave Verum Corpus, which opens the CD, is
also fairly readily available on record. It might have helped
to make the Signum recording more attractive if other settings
of this piece had been included - the Mozart, for example. It
receives a beautiful performance here but, other things being
equal, I prefer to hear this work in the context of other music
by Byrd or his contemporaries. That can be done very inexpensively
by purchasing the EMI recording,
Essential Renaissance,
which I have already mentioned. It’s performed there by
King’s College, Cambridge, Choir under the direction of
Sir David Willcocks; it doesn’t quite match up as a performance
or recording to the best recent versions, but the Willcocks manner
always brought out the affective quality of the music more openly
than the new Signum version, even though he takes the music at
a slightly faster pace.
Once again, I could fill the rest of this review with recommendations
for
Ave verum Corpus recorded within the context of Byrd’s
own music, but I shall content myself with recommending the Tallis
Scholars again, either on their superb bargain 2-CD set,
The
Tallis Scholars Sing Byrd (CDGIM208), where the work is coupled
with the three Masses and more, or on
Playing Elizabeth’s
Tune (CD, CDGIM992, SACD, GIMSA592, or DVD GIMDP901 or GIMDN902),
recorded in conjunction with a TV programme. Once again the Scholars,
who are not noted for rushing through music, take the work rather
faster than the Armonico Consort, to its advantage, I think.
If you are looking for
Ave verum coupled with one of Byrd’s
Masses, you can find it with the 4-part Mass on Nimbus NI5287,
sung by Christ Church, Oxford, College Choir under Stephen Darlingotn
- see
review -
reverentially sung, but again taken rather faster than by Armonico
Tributo.
I liked the Armonico Consort in Tallis’s Pentecost music
Loquebantur
variis linguis and I didn’t find their tempo too slow.
Once again, however, the Tallis Scholars sing the music of their
namesake slightly more briskly and make it sound even more right.
As so often, tempo alone is not the only consideration; I could
live with either version, or, indeed, with The Sixteen on their
all-Tallis recording (Chandos CHAN0513), but the Scholars have
the edge in terms of price - a considerable chunk of Tallis’s
music on two CDs for the price of one. Don’t forget, too,
that all these Gimell recordings include texts and translations.
(
The Tallis Scholars Sing Tallis, CDGIM203).
I must not forget to add that Signum themselves have a wonderful
complete recording of Tallis’s music in their catalogue,
performed by Chapelle du Roi/Alistair Dixon;
Loquebantur variis
linguis is on Volume 4 (SIGCD10)- again, it’s taken
at a faster pace than by Armonico Consort.
At the same time as this new Signum recording I have been listening
to a CD of Renaissance music sung by Cheltenham College Chamber
Choir on Herald (HAVPCD351), which includes
Loquebantur variis
linguis. Initial listening suggests that I shall be giving
that CD a firm recommendation, not least for the Tallis work
which concludes the programme. The Tallis Scholars and the Cheltenham
Choir both take the work significantly faster than Armonico Consort,
whose performance, once again, is beautiful at the cost of being
a little too drawn-out.
Armonico Consort also stress the beauty of the final work from
the sixteenth century, Sheppard’s
Libera nos, again,
I would suggest, by dint of taking it a little too slowly. It
is a prayer for liberation from sin, but I would suggest that
it needs to be taken just a shade faster, as it is by The Sixteen
on Hyperion. Their recording is available on an inexpensive 2-for-1
Dyad set or, more inexpensively still, on a 10-CD set
The
Golden Age of English Polyphony, which I made Bargain of
the Month (CDS44401/10 - see
review and
review by
Ralph Moore).
If you subscribe to the Naxos Music Library and wish to check
my reservations for yourself, this Signum recording is available
there - click
here.
The Library lists eleven other recordings of Byrd’s
Ave
verum for comparison, including The Tallis Scholars and Christ
Church versions. Several of the other recordings which I have
mentioned are also available from the Library, including Chapelle
du Roi in Tallis.
Those who are not deterred by the mixture of periods here may
rest assured that the more recent music fits well with the 16
th-century
items. Lauridsen’s
O Magnum Mysterium, for example,
slots seamlessly on track 2 between the Byrd (track 1) and Tallis
(track 3). Here, too, and especially in the Górecki
Totus
Tuus, a piece which could well have been written by a Renaissance
composer restored to life in the late 20
th-century,
the long vocal lines suit the music well and there is never any
sense that the length causes any strain in the singing.
Robert Pearsall’s
Lay a Garland forms a perfect
bridge between the earlier and later composers. I don’t
think that I’ve heard this work before but it epitomises
Pearsall’s place as one of the earliest revivers of Renaissance
music and it receives an attractive performance here. I almost
preferred it to the well-known Tavener
Song for Athene which
follows - perhaps that music is too familiar now to sound fresh,
or the performance just a touch too reverential as a result of
its association with the funeral of Princess Diana.
The Bruckner receives a good performance but, as with the earlier
music, I would have preferred to hear it in context with his
other music, for example on Hyperion CDA66062, where the Corydon
Singers under Matthew Best perform it in the company of some
of Bruckner’s other short choral works. That version is
also available on a 3-CD set, CDS44071/3. (Don’t forget
their recording of Bruckner’s Mass in e minor and other
works on the inexpensive Hyperion Helios label, CDH55277 - see
review).
The final work on the Signum CD, Jonathan Robert’s
Hope
finds a way, has, to my knowledge, no current recorded rival.
It’s an attractive piece by a young composer who deserves
to be heard, even if he seems yet not to have found a very distinctive
voice - you may hear shades of
Adiemus in the background
- and it’s well performed.
The recording is good throughout and the notes informative. I
retain my reservation about the slow tempi of most of the earlier
music, but it isn’t strong enough to withhold a recommendation.
The lack of texts in a premium-price recording is much more serious
and must be regarded as a serious reservation in an otherwise
favourable review. I would willingly have forgone the photograph
which takes up all of page 9 and the details about the performers
for the sake of those texts. The fact that I know most of them
or can easily look them up is neither here nor there; others,
especially fledgling listeners, will not be able to.
Brian Wilson
Armonico Consort/Christopher Monks 
