Following the success of their prize-winning recording of de Victoria’s Requiem, Tenebrae under ex-King Singer Nigel Short have followed up with the “Tenebrae Responsoria” by the same composer. The “Tenebrae” (“shadows”) are a combination of two offices, Matins and Lauds, sung between the Thursday and Saturday of Holy Week. The Maundy Thursday office appeals especially to the poetic imagination by the gradual extinguishing, as the singing proceeds, of the fifteen candles representing Christ, the disciples (excluding Judas Iscariot) and the three Marys.
The text for the responds was assembled probably in the fourth century and narrates the Passion by combining phrases from the Gospels with other commentaries on the nature of Christ’s suffering. Obviously this is liturgical music of the most serious, sombre and “vertical” nature. My point of comparison for the purposes of this review was with the celebrated 1991 release of the same music made by The Sixteen under Harry Christophers on Virgin Classics.
I cannot say that I would urge anyone who already owns that Virgin issue to buy the newer recording; the differences between the older and newest versions are too slight to justify the expenditure. However, differences there are: The Sixteen, in fact, comprise eighteen singers for their recording of the “Tenebrae”, with two more sopranos and one more singer than the choir Tenebrae, who thus number thirteen. This, in combination with a closer, less reverberant recording acoustic for Tenebrae, results in a cleaner, narrower, more distinct sound with words and individual singers more prominent, as opposed to The Sixteen’s more distanced, ethereal, very slightly blurred profile. Tenebrae offer more dynamic range and variety. Some will find that the immediacy of Tenebrae’s voices compromises the essentially ethereal nature of the music, yet at certain crucial points I feel that The Sixteen bring more immediacy and drama to the text; I am thinking particularly of band 6, “Seniores populi” where Tenebrae take a minute and a half longer over the music and sing in reflective rather than dramatic style, thereby missing the thrust of words such as “cum gladii et fustibus” (“with swords and clubs”). That unnecessary leisureliness accounts for the only significant disparity in timings between the two recordings. Another point where The Sixteen have the edge is in the crucial early depictions of Judas’s betrayal in tracks two and three. They are considerably more urgent and emphatic in their establishing the enormity of his sin when intoning the curse upon him, “Melius illi erat, se natus non fuisset” (“It would have been better for him had he never been born”). At the other end of the emotional spectrum, the otherworldliness of “”O vos omnes” (track 14) is more strikingly suggested by the superior disembodied sound of Christophers’ sopranos rather than that of the gutsier Tenebrae singers.
As you see, therefore, while I applaud the impeccable intonation and musicality of the newer version, I am content to let my loyalties rest with the older Virgin disc.
Ralph Moore
Previous reviews:
Simon Thompson and
Jake Barlow (November 2013 Recording of the Month)
Track listing
Feria V in Coena Domini ad Matutinum in secundo nocturno
Responsorium IV: Amicus meus [3:01]
Responsorium V: Iudas merator pessimus [2:24]
Responsorium VI: Unus ex discipuli meis [4:07]
Feria V in Coena Domini ad Matutinum in tertio nocturno
Responsorium VII: Eram quasi agnus [3:31]
Responsorium VIII: Una hora [3:05]
Responsorium IX: Seniores populi [5:43]
Feria VI in parasceve ad Matutinum in secundo nocturno
Responsorium IV: Tamquam ad latronem [3:42]
Responsorium V: Tenebrae factae sunt [4:22]
Responsorium VI: Animam meam dilectam [8:14]
Feria VI in parasceve ad Matutinum in tertio nocturno
Responsorium VII: Tradiderunt me [2:43]
Responsorium VIII: Iesum tradidit impius [2:55]
Responsorium IX: Caligaverunt oculi mei [6:32]
Sabbato Sancto ad Matutinum in secundo nocturno
Responsorium IV: Recessit pastor noster [3:31]
Responsorium V: O vos omnes [3:04]
Responsorium VI: Ecce quomodo moritus [5:29]
Sabbato Sancto ad Matutinum in tertio nocturno
Responsorium VII: Astiterunt reges [2:10]
Responsorium VIII: Aestimatus sum [2:44]
Responsorium IX: Sepulto Domino [4:41]
