BENEVOLO Missa Si Deus pro nobis. Magnificat
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Girolamo Frescobaldi, Orazio Benevolo, Claudio Monteverdi, Anonymous, Giovanni Palestrina
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Alpha
Magazine Review Date: 08/2018
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 61
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ALPHA400
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Missa Si Deus pro nobis |
Orazio Benevolo, Composer
(Le) Concert Spirituel Vocal Ensemble Hervé Niquet, Conductor Orazio Benevolo, Composer |
Magnificat |
Orazio Benevolo, Composer
(Le) Concert Spirituel Vocal Ensemble Hervé Niquet, Conductor Orazio Benevolo, Composer |
Regna terrae |
Orazio Benevolo, Composer
(Le) Concert Spirituel Vocal Ensemble Hervé Niquet, Conductor Orazio Benevolo, Composer |
Ne avertas faciem tuam a puero tuo |
Anonymous, Composer
(Le) Concert Spirituel Vocal Ensemble Anonymous, Composer Hervé Niquet, Conductor |
Canzon Vigesimanona a 8 |
Girolamo Frescobaldi, Composer
(Le) Concert Spirituel Vocal Ensemble Girolamo Frescobaldi, Composer Hervé Niquet, Conductor |
Cantate Domino |
Claudio Monteverdi, Composer
(Le) Concert Spirituel Vocal Ensemble Claudio Monteverdi, Composer Hervé Niquet, Conductor |
Beata es Virgo Maria |
Giovanni Palestrina, Composer
(Le) Concert Spirituel Vocal Ensemble Giovanni Palestrina, Composer Hervé Niquet, Conductor |
Author: Alexandra Coghlan
This new recording places the composer’s mighty Missa Si Deus pro nobis (never before recorded) at its heart, framing it liturgically with a processional plainchant hymn, Monteverdi’s Cantate Domino by way of Introit and Benevolo’s own 16-voice Magnificat as a Communion motet. The effect, enhanced by the vivid immediacy and careful balance of a recording made at Paris’s Notre-Dame du Liban, makes congregants of its listeners, surrounded on all sides by the eight choirs of Le Concert Spirituel (whose forces include both singers and instruments and range from five to 10 performers).
What’s startling here is the range and intricacy of the polyphonic effects woven through Benevolo’s Mass. Monumentality is never reduced to one-note grandiosity, and textures vary from the tender sensuality of the suspension sequences of the Christe that roll, wave-like, from choir to choir, to punchier, more declamatory homophony in the Credo and rhythmically charged contrapuntal dances in the second Kyrie. If there is a casualty among so much splendour it’s harmonic interest; this is music whose paths might be limited but whose textural landscapes along the route more than make up for that.
Shawms and dulcians and even a racket add their wonderfully characterful rasp and husk to the purer voices of Niquet’s singers, creating a multi-dimensional sonic tapestry of gritty beauty. The Magnificat, with its lean verse sections, varies the pace pleasantly, and the Monteverdi has all the rhythmic definition and urgency you’d want, as well as an unusual grandeur and scope from its vast forces.
As compelling sonically as it is historically, this is a recording whose interest extends well beyond the specialist – a glorious re creation not just of a lost composer but of an era.
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