de la Rue - Masses - Beauty Farm

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent recording

This is an excellent double-CD. Don’t be put off by the silly name of the ensemble or the abominably bad cover because the music is wonderful.

The set consists of four hitherto unrecorded mass settings by Pierre da la Rue: Missa Almana, Missa De Sancto Antonio, Missa Puer natus est nobis and Missa Tous les regretz. They are varied but all very fine settings as one would expect from de la Rue, who was an excellent composer. There is a spare beauty about them which I love and we owe Beauty Farm a debt of gratitude for making them available to us.

The performances are excellent. Beauty Farm sing one to a part here; they are technically impeccable, with a lovely fluency of line and genuine engagement with the text. At a lower Flemish pitch the lovely acoustic makes the overall sound extremely beautiful and this is a very rewarding recording all round which I can recommend very warmly.

Alon Sariel - Rembrandt!

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Disappointing

I’m rather disappointed in this disc. I generally love lute music, but this collection left me pretty cold. The music itself is nice enough and there’s nothing actively wrong with the playing, but for me it all sounds rather bland and never quite takes off. I found my attention wandering after quite a short time listening to Rembrandt!, which is never a good sign.

Others may not share my reservations and find this to their taste, but I can only give it a very qualified recommendation.

de la Rue - Requiem - Clemencic Consort

Rating: 1/5

Review:
Very disappointing

I’m afraid I don’t like this recording at all. Pierre de la Rue’s music is quite wonderful, I think, but it doesn’t get much of a chance here. Firstly, the instrumental parts are harsh and over-dominant, which already puts de la Rue’s fabulous polyphony at a disadvantage. Worse, the voices have no blend or coherence at all in a lot of the music. It is typified by the opening “Requiem” sung by a very low, rather strained and wholly unresonant bass, while other voices and instruments then pile in sounding as though none is listening to anyone else. It sounds, frankly, horrible to my ears and has absolutely none of the spiritual depth or spare beauty one would expect from de la Rue’s setting of the Requiem.

I’m sorry to be so critical, but I really can’t get on with this at all. There are very fine recordings available of de la Rue’s Requiem by Capella Pratensis, Ensemble Officium and (if you can still find it) The Clerk’s Group. My advice is to try one of them and give this a wide berth.

Bach - Cello Suites (Violin) - Podger

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very fine recording

This is a very fine recording. I approached it with some trepidation even though I love Rachel Podger’s playing (especially of Bach) because I wasn’t at all sure that the Cello Suites would transcribe successfully for the violin. There are some moments of weakness caused by the different properties of the instrument, but there are also some very rewarding things about it.

Podger’s tempi are generally pretty brisk, which I find works very well on the violin. She has the insight and the technique to make the dances really dance, which is probably the great strength of the set as Bach’s music really comes alive in her hands. Of necessity, what the violin lacks is the depth and gravitas of the cello and the relative lack of resonance does mean that some movements don’t have the impact they would on a cello (the Sarabande of the 5^th Suite is a good case in point). However, many of the other movements – especially the closing Gigues – have such a joyous zing to them that it’s a very enjoyable and rewarding set overall.

This won’t take the place of my dearly loved cello recordings by Isserlis, Watkin, Fournier, Gastinel and others, but I’m very glad to have it and I’ll certainly be listening to it often. It’s truly great music in the hands of a truly great musician and I can recommend it very warmly.