Rating: 5/5
Review:
Another fine release from Cinquecento
This is another fine release by the excellent
Cinquecento. I have become a real
devotee of their recordings over the last few years and this is a really good
one.
Lassus doesn't always inspire me. His music can sometimes be a little ponderous
to my ears and it needs a very fine performance to make it really shine. It gets that here, and both the mass and the
motets which make up this disc are very beautiful and genuinely moving in
places. The mass was new to me – it's a parody mass based on Lassus's own motet
Dixit Joseph Undecim Fratribus Suis and it's very good, as are the motets. This is obviously a small selection from
Lassus's vast output, and they are very well chosen to give a good variety,
from the unfamiliar (to may, anyway) to the very well known Timor Et Tremor
which closes the disc.
It's all beautifully sung and recorded. Cinquecento are technically flawless, with
impeccable intonation, a lovely fluency of line and a beautiful blend of the
male voices. Their lower, Flemish pitch
gives the music a fabulous resonance in a perfect acoustic, and the whole thing
sounds just fabulous. They also give the
texts real meaning, so the Agnus Dei, for example, really sounds like a plea
for the granting of peace, and fear and trembling are plain in Timor Et
Tremor. It's exemplary singing, I think.
It often takes something quite special to really involve me
in Lassus's music, and I think this is something special. It's another gem from this very, very fine
ensemble and I can recommend it very warmly.
No comments:
Post a Comment