2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A desert island box of treasures, July 25, 2005
This review is from: History Of Flemish Polyphony (De Vlaamse Polyfonie) / Nevel, Currende Consort (Audio CD)
For a Renaissance music lover this is what you might dream of finding at the end of the rainbow. Getting this set - which comes in a beautiful treasure box - is like all your Christmas' coming at once. Some of the performances here seem to have that incredible rightness to them that they seem utterly definitive.
First and foremost the choice of repertoire has to be commended. It must be agonizingly difficult to choose composers and works for a set like this. Under the circumstances the results are a wonderful balance between choosing too many predictable famous works and having something just that slight bit out of the ordinary. I must say I like the fact a sizable protion of the selections are devoted to somewhat less known, but nonetheless superb composers, such as Adrian Willaert and Phillipe Rogier. Out of a 10 volume set only Josquin has a whole CD devoted entirely to his music. Interestingly, the Josquin volume is devoted to his chansons - rather than, say, the Missa Pange Lingua and the motets as you might have predicted. Fortunately, most of us will have other recordings of these works already anyway, so it really helps to avoid doubling up on recordings. Lassus almost gets a whole CD of music with a nice mixture of his motets and secular music.
The titles of individual volumes on this set are:
Adriaan Willaert en Italië
Philippe Rogier en Spanje
Orlandus Lassus
Songs and Dances from Flanders
Philippus De Monte and the Habsburgers
Nicolaas Gombert en het Hof van Keizer Karel
Isaac, Obrecht, De La Rue
Josquin des Prez
Johannes Ockeghem en Frankrijk
Guillaume Dufay en Bourgondië
Of course some composers seem to somewhat miss out when only a small morsel can be fitted into the allocated space. A more substantial selection of works by Pierre de la Rue than just a couple of chansons and a motet would have been ideal, as would more by Obrecht. Although in Erik van Nevel's defense, Obrecht has grown in stature in the eyes of prosterity since these recordings were made. The performance of Obrecht's motet Salve Regina is still so stupendous that although only 8 minutes long it is good enough to justify buying the whole boxed set just to get this alone! A complete mass by Gombert too would have been similarly nice. The performance of the Virgo Prudendissima by Isaac is also probably the finest to have ever been recorded - far more dramatic and monumental than even the recording by the Tallis Scholars (which is still superb nonetheless). In fact all composers are represented solely on the basis of motets and chansons. Fortunately, Erik van Nevel manages to reasonably well avoid having extracts of whole mass cycles - with only a few minor examples this sort of choppy anthological approach creeping in here. The often quite substantial motets by each composer are frequently otherwise unavailable making the whole set even more desirable.
A few comments on the performance practice. The choir is mixed and sings breathtakingly beautifully throughout. Since this recording was made, the practice of having instrumental doublings has gone in and out of fashion. For a while it was considered completely out of touch to have instrumental accompaniments, whereas now it is considered at the discretion of the performer. Many of the chansons are performed in all instrumental renditions and most of the sacred works are performed with instrumental doublings of parts. Regardless of your personal preference, all I can say is that Erik van Nevel has used instrumental accompaniment in every one of his recordings and he has always done so with impeccable taste. You could not ask for it to be done more tastefully than he does here.
Lastly, the sound quality is imminently serviceable - well balanced, tonally warm and pleasantly atmospheric, if only just somewhat lacking in the ultimate in refined detail and sound staging. It is however the quality of the performances that make this set invaluable. As for the availablility issues of Eufoda recordings, I got my set from a selller on UK Amazon and until someone regularly distributes these outside of the EU you may have to look around. It is also worth looking on French and German Amazon, where you can buy the CDs separately if you must, but I strongly advise trying to get the whole set, as it is more economical to do so.
This is a collection of Renaissance music that belongs in every true music lover's collection. I am certainly taking it with me to my desert island.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just Superb!, August 23, 2004
This review is from: History Of Flemish Polyphony (De Vlaamse Polyfonie) / Nevel, Currende Consort (Audio CD)
This 10 CD set comes in a beautiful box which houses each disc individually. (It once came with a companion book, and made one visually and aurally stunning package of ART from Renaissance Flanders). The Currende Consort, in various configurations, is bang on as always. Composers include the usual suspects like Dufay, Josquin and Lassus, but each CD is also laced with works by Flemings like Willaert and de Monte. Eufoda is to be commended on this sort of undertaking. Each disc contains a booklet (in English), so you are not left without information if you cannot find the large book (FLEMISH POLYPHONY by Bossuyt). Sadly, the label currently appears to have no distributor in the US, but you can still order this from Europe through fine e-tailers like crotchet.co.uk or mdt.co.uk.
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