DUFAY Les Messes à Teneur
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Guillaume Dufay
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Musique En Wallonie
Magazine Review Date: 07/2016
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 137
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: MEW1577/8
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Se la face ay pale |
Guillaume Dufay, Composer
Cut Circle Guillaume Dufay, Composer Jesse Rodin, Conductor |
Missa, 'Se la face ay pale' |
Guillaume Dufay, Composer
Cut Circle Guillaume Dufay, Composer Jesse Rodin, Conductor |
Missa, '(L')homme armé' |
Guillaume Dufay, Composer
Cut Circle Guillaume Dufay, Composer Jesse Rodin, Conductor |
Missa, 'Ecce ancilla Domini' |
Guillaume Dufay, Composer
Cut Circle Guillaume Dufay, Composer Jesse Rodin, Conductor |
Ave regina celorum |
Guillaume Dufay, Composer
Cut Circle Guillaume Dufay, Composer Jesse Rodin, Conductor |
Missa Ave regina celorum |
Guillaume Dufay, Composer
Cut Circle Guillaume Dufay, Composer Jesse Rodin, Conductor |
Author: David Fallows
The ensemble Cut Circle – already famous for their earlier double-disc set of Josquin and De Orto, also for Musique en Wallonie – comprises just eight singers, with two women on the top voice. Dufay would have had men on top, but Carolann Buff and Mary Gerbi are so good that nobody will regret their contribution. These are all top-rate singers with pure and excellently focused voices: every one of them appears here as a soloist in one of the duet sections, and the intonation and ensemble are beyond reproach.
What some listeners may find a stumbling block is the speeds Jesse Rodin adopts. For example, the Kyrie of the Missa Se la face ay pale comes in at 3'09", far faster than any of the 12 other recordings apart from Thomas Binkley in 1987 (3'04") and almost double the speed of what I still think of as one of the most marvellous Dufay records ever, directed by David Munrow in 1973 (5'07"). Not all the movements sound quite so hectic but most are the quickest available, and to my ears one consequence is that rather too much of the detail is swallowed. Some may also find that the lack of space rather trivialises the music and occasionally results in the singers putting too much effort into the sound. But it does at the same time make it easier for the long phrases to hang together and for the movements to come across as coherent music units.
There are many other recordings of all these works, but surely all serious collectors will want this issue of all four works, beautifully sung, beautifully recorded, beautifully presented and always exhilarating.
Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music.
Gramophone Digital Club
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £8.75 / month
SubscribeGramophone Full Club
- Print Edition
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £11.00 / month
Subscribe
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.