William BYRD (1543-1623)
Motet Terra tremuit for 5 voices [1:05]
Antoine BRUMEL (c.1460-c.1520)
Missa: Et ecce terræ motus for 12 voices (c.1497) [38:00]
Roland de LASSUS (v.1532-1594)
Motet Timor et tremor for 6 voices [3:45]
Jacobus VAET (c.1529-1567)
Motet Quoties diem illum for 4 voices [4:44]
Thomas CRÉCQUILLON (c.1505-1557)
Motet Heu mihi, Domine for 5 voices [4:55]
Giovanni Pierluigi da PALESTRINA (c.1525-1594)
Motet Terra tremuit for 5 voices [2:21]
Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal/Christopher Jackson
rec. Chapelle du Grand Séminaire de Montréal, Montréal, (Québec), Canada, June 2013. DDD.
Booklet with texts and translations included
Reviewed as lossless download from eclassical.com (also available in mp3)
ATMA CLASSIQUE ACD22653 [54:45]
The programme begins and ends with five-part settings of the
Offertory for the second Mass of Easter Sunday, first by Byrd
and then Palestrina. The Byrd is short and sweet, as befits a
setting intended for illegal celebration by a recusant community
in permanent fear of discovery. The Cardinall’s Musick/Andrew
Carwood on ASV CDGAU214 – Recording of the Month, DL
Roundup November 2010 – despatch it even more quickly
– 0:48 against 1:05. It thereby achieves a greater sense
of the action – the earth trembled and was still when God
arose to judgement – but at the expense of the poise which
Jackson finds in the music.
Once a very rare beast, the Brumel ‘Earthquake’ Mass,
a work in which the great Lassus once sang, has become almost
a repertoire standard in recent years. The nickname is derived
from the fact that the cantus firmus, the musical structure
on which the Mass is founded, is the Passiontide antiphon Et
ecce terræ motus – and behold there was an earthquake.
The final section of the manuscript containing the Agnus Dei
has been badly damaged but has been reconstructed for this recording.
The earliest recording, by the Huelgas Ensemble and Paul Nevel,
dating from 1991 and originally for Sony, is available again on
the Newton label – review
– but my benchmark is the version made by The Tallis Scholars
which followed hard on its heels (Gimell CDGIM026 or, for very
little more, on a budget-price 4-CD set Sacred Music in the
Renaissance 2, GIMBX302: Bargain of the Month – review
and December
2010 DL Roundup). Regular readers will not be surprised to
discover that, although Jackson finds more poise than Carwood
in the Byrd, the new recording of the Brumel is consistently somewhat
faster than the Gimell, markedly so in the Agnus Dei,
where a different edition has led to a shorter version.
Listen to the new Atma recording and you will be treated to a
persuasive performance of some wonderful music. Heard in its own
context you will probably find it very satisfying, but change
to the Gimell version and the more reflective pace gives the music
more time to expand. The consensus doesn’t have to be right
but the Tallis Scholars are in line with the pioneering van Nevel
recording, the Stuttgart Schola Cantorum (Brilliant Classics –
review)
– both of these even more slowly paced than the Gimell –
and the Tudor Consort (Organism). A recording by Dominique Visse
(Harmonia Mundi – deleted but Amazon have a few in stock
at a premium price) gave the music even more space. Only The Sixteen
under Harry Christophers come at all close to the tempi on Atma.
(Coro COR16097: The Earth Resounds – DL
Roundup March 2012/1). Nor do we know what tempi Brumel envisaged
or Lassus sang but The Tallis Scholars seem to have it right.
The new Atma recording gives us, as it were, the aural equivalent
of a great cathedral; from Gimell we see individual constituents
of that cathedral. To take two examples, the impassioned repeated
cries of eleison, have mercy, in the central section
of the Kyrie, and their Latin equivalent, miserere
nobis, in the following Gloria, gain in power on
Atma, but I prefer the generally more thoughtful nature of The
Tallis Scholars’ version.
The Tallis Scholars round off their Brumel programme with the
Lamentations, also included in the collection on GIMBX302,
but the Magnificat unfortunately isn’t in the box
set and there are no alternative recordings – you need the
original CDGIM026 for that. It’s often difficult to keep
up with the different permutations of Gimell recordings in 1-,
2- and 4-CD formats.
Christopher Jackson completes the new album with other music by
Renaissance composers connected with the theme of fear and trembling,
so that it becomes less Easter-themed than the title suggests
and more concerned with the Last Judgment – that day (diem
illum) on which the text of the Vaet work meditates with
trembling.
Lassus’ Timor et tremor is the best known of these
other works and here again my comparison is with The Tallis Scholars
(CDGIM048, with Missa osculetur me and other works by
Lassus). Once again, though enjoying the new recording, I prefer
the way in which the Scholars give the music significantly more
time to develop.
In the Vaet and Créquillon works the new recording has
the field to itself. With no other recordings for comparison it’s
easier to appreciate the quality of the singing and direction
of Jackson and his team.
We return to terra tremuit on the final track, this time
from Palestrina. There are three very fine recordings of this,
all with other music by Palestrina: Hyperion CDA67978, The Brabant
Ensemble/Stephen Rice – DL
News 2013/6 – and The Sixteen/Harry Christophers, on
the third volume of their Palestrina cycle, Coro COR16016 –
DL
News 2013/4 – or on a 3-CD set entitled The Queen
of Heaven, COR16108. As on track 1, Jackson on the new Atma
recording gives the music time to breathe, taking fractionally
longer than Christophers or Carwood. The Sixteen and The Cardinall’s
Musick sound a touch brighter, though there’s otherwise
little to choose between them.
I could have been very happy with the new recording had I not
known those earlier recordings of the principal work, the Brumel
Mass. There I remain loyal to The Tallis Scholars first and foremost
and their recording comes either coupled with other music by Brumel
or as part of an extremely good value package. Put The Scholars
out of mind and the Atma is very enjoyable and never less than
professional. In the Byrd and Palestrina there is little to choose
between Jackson’s team and his rivals and two of the works
recorded here are not available elsewhere. The recording, too,
is clear and immediate and the booklet adds to the appeal of this
recording.
Brian Wilson
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