I
have to declare something of a predisposition towards this
disc. I am a huge fan of the ECM label.
As for the Hilliard Ensemble, they can do no wrong for me
since their contribution to a concert in The Hague during
the Royal Conservatoire’s Ligeti festival – a
memory I shall carry with me to the grave. First up after
the interval, they started singing, somehow without realising
that their numbers were incomplete – a situation which was
redressed to much hilarity, after which they manfully sang
through the insensitive crashing of post
pauze coffee
cups being washed up downstairs in the crypt at the ‘Nieuwe Kerk.’
Back
to the present! I first put this disc on after returning
home late one evening, my artistic sensibilities having been
damaged by out-of-tune electric guitars at a student presentation
at the local ‘Cultural Centre’ at which I have recently found
gainful employment. ‘Balm for the soul’ is a description
which has previously been applied to the Hilliard’s Perotin CD
(ECM 1385). I found the new Gombert to
have a similar effect. His writing is quite intensely layered,
with a lack of rests in the music making the counterpoint
flow in waves of delicious sound.
I
am grateful to the often wilfully ascetic or obscure ECM publishing
style for providing Jonathan Wainwright’s useful booklet
notes, which cover Gombert’s historical
position between Josquin Desprez and Palestrina,
the unfortunate effect of which having lead to his work being
overshadowed by those great names. Gombert was
by 1529 the
maître des enfants of
the chapel choir of Emperor Charles V in Spain, and his travels
and influence with the court led to his work being printed
by all of the major European publishers. In around 1540 this
all stopped, when he was sentenced to the galleys for ‘gross
indecency with a choirboy.’ After his release he completed
his career as canon at the Cathedral of Tournai.
This
CD presents the ‘Missa Media vita
in morte sumus’ interspersed with
motets to provide contrast. The ear soon becomes accustomed
to the difference in approach between the mass settings and
some of the more adventurous motets, and selecting just the
tracks of the mass reveals the benefits of this kind of programming.
I have a disadvantage in not having heard the Oxford Camerata’s recent
release on Naxos, but I am sure these two releases complement
each other well – besides, I know the
Hilliard’s distinctive sound colour is not to everyone’s
taste, despite my own predilection.
It
almost goes without saying that the recording is set in a
suitably resonant acoustic, and is beautifully balanced between
articulate detail and spatial atmosphere. If you are in doubt,
pester your shopkeeper to play you the first and final tracks.
If the organically developing lines of the
Media vita don’t
get you going, then the transcendent atmosphere of the
Musae lovis most
surely will – right until the final
tierce.
Dominy Clements
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The Hilliard Ensemble: (David
James (counter-tenor); Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor); Steven Harrold (tenor);
Andreas Hirbreiter (tenor); Gordon Jones
(baritone); Robert Macdonald (bass)) 
