Customer Reviews

Festal Sacred Music of Bavaria

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Before I say anything else I must say, BUY THIS DISC. I've been listening to it for two days and can't bring myself to put something else on. The only fault I've ever found with the Westminster Cathedral Choir is that, occasionally, boy choirs don't record well. Such is not the case with this recording. The engineer has finally come closer to communicating the artistry that is shown by these performers. The CD illuminates a fascinating and often overlooked period in the history of western music. You couldn't possibly ask for a better performance of some of the greatest music you'll ever hear.

The Westminster Cathedral Choir and His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, under the direction of James O'Donnell, give a magnificent rendition of festal sacred music by Orlandus Lassus, Hans Leo Hassler and Christian Erbach, as it may have been performed at Mass on the Feast Day of a Martyr-Bishop in Augsburg Cathedral, Bavaria, circa 1600. The Augsburg Cathedral Choir then consisted of men and boys; the Westminster Cathedral Choir now consists of men and boys.

Save for the (fairly often recorded) Lassus Mass, all this disc's pieces are profoundly obscure, having seldom if ever turned up on other CDs. Without exception they are splendid, echoing the antiphonal effects pioneered by the Gabrielis in Venice, but with a decided declamatory character of their own.

The only slight drawback to this impressive collection is the mild but persistent tendency towards understatement which the performers display. All is beautifully polished, but it needn't and shouldn't sound so stiff-upper-lip - especially in the bland-sounding organ solos - as it often does. Konrad Ruhland's wonderful anthology (TE DEUM LAUDAMUS, on the Sony label) of very similar material has the requisite vocal and instrumental toughness which this collection lacks. So this is an attractive supplement to the Ruhland recording rather than a substitute for it.