Rating: 2/5
Review:
Rather dull
I'm afraid that I found this disc rather dull. Lassus was a wonderful composer and there are a lot of very fine recordings of his work, but for me this isn't among them.
The works presented here are settings of nine lessons from the Book of Job, which were new to me, and Lassus's much better-known Prophetiae Sibyllarum, a dark, chromatic work which in the right hands is varied and extremely atmospheric.
Ensemble Daedalus didn't manage to move me with either work. They are a very good group of singers with excellent technique, but I found passion and emotion rather lacking here. They create a nice sound together but it all begins to get a bit samey, I found, with each movement sounding distressingly similar to the last one. It isn't helped by an under-responsive acoustic and recording which makes the sound a little dry. The Job settings especially are largely chordal rather than polyphonic and really need more resonance to allow them to ring out.
Alpha make their usual beautiful job of presentation and provide good notes and full texts. This can't really make up for what I found to be a lacklustre performance, though, and I can't really recommend this recording.
(For really good recordings of Lassus, try the Hilliard Ensemble, Cinquecento, The Tallis Scholars or De Labyrintho.)
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