40 Voices [Hybrid SACD]

Huelgas Ensemble - 40 Voices [Hybrid SACD]

40 Voices [Hybrid SACD]
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CD Details

Artist: Huelgas Ensemble
Composer: Josquin Desprez
Composer: Giovanni Gabrieli
Composer: Joao Lourenco Rebelo
Composer: Alesandro Striggio
Composer: Thomas Tallis
Composer: Robert Wylkynson
Composer: Juan Baptista Comes
Composer: Pieter Maessins
Conductor: Paul Van Nevel
Edition: Music CD
Format: Hybrid SACD - DSD, Import
CD Release Date: 2007-02-13
Music Label: Harmonia Mundi Fr.
Soundtracks:
  1. Nomen Mortis Infame
  2. Gloria
  3. Qui Habitat
  4. Jesus Autem/Credo In Deum
  5. Ecce Beatam Lucem
  6. En Venant De Lyon
  7. Lauda Jerusalem
  8. Exaudi Me Domine
  9. Spem In Alium

Music reviews of 40 Voices [Hybrid SACD]

Music Review: Beautiful performances...but why repeat so much material?
Rating: 3 Stars

Taken from live performances in celebration of the Huelgas Ensemble's 35th birthday in 2005, this CD is both beautifully executed and attractively presented. Programmatically, it is rewarding too, drawing together numerous large-scale polyphonic masterpieces from the Renaissance and placing them alongside a newly commissioned work by Willem Ceuleers, a bass in the Huelgas Ensemble, written in 35 parts (i.e. one voice part for each year).

So why only 3 stars...?

My only real gripe with this recording - although admittedly, it is significant - lies in the fact that it features four works which have already appeared in virtually identical interpretations on a previous recording by the Huelgas Ensemble (Utopia Triumphans, Sony SK 66261, recorded 1995): they are

3. Josquin - "Qui habitat"
5. Striggio - "Ecce beatam lucem"
8. Gabrieli - "Exaudi me Domine"
9. Tallis - "Spem in alium".

In all, this equates to a total of nearly half the CD, both in terms of the number of pieces performed (4 out of 9) and in terms of the total duration (nearly 30 minutes out of 62)!

This observation is all the more bewildering (or even lamentable?) given that there are many other large-scale Renaissance works which could have been performed in their place - these include the 19-voice motet "O bone Jesu" by Robert Carver (c.1484-1567); the 12-part canon "Iste est speciosa" by Mathieu Gascongne (fl.1513-18); a 20-part canon by Giovanni Maria Nanino (c.1543-1607); the magnificent setting of "Duo Seraphim" by Francisco Guerrero (1528-99) for three 4-part choirs; and countless works in the Venetian polychoral style by Gabrieli and his lesser known contemporaries (such as Antonio Cifra [1584-1629], whose "Litanie Deiparae virginis" of 1613 includes motets for up to 12 voices). The greatest tragedy of this is that many of these works have, to my knowledge, never been recorded before. So in all, they have missed a real opportunity here!

In sum, those who do not possess either this CD or the above-mentioned Utopia Triumphans are strongly recommended to purchase at least one of these recordings! Whether or not you feel it is worth investing in both rather depends on the extent to which 85 minutes of music for the price of 2 CDs seems like good value for money...
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