Obrecht Missa Maria Zart
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Jacob Obrecht
Label: Gimell
Magazine Review Date: 3/1996
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 69
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 454 932-2PH
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Missa Maria Zart |
Jacob Obrecht, Composer
Jacob Obrecht, Composer Peter Phillips, Conductor Tallis Scholars |
Composer or Director: Jacob Obrecht
Label: Gimell
Magazine Review Date: 3/1996
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 1585T-32
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Missa Maria Zart |
Jacob Obrecht, Composer
Jacob Obrecht, Composer Peter Phillips, Conductor Tallis Scholars |
Composer or Director: Jacob Obrecht
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Gimell
Magazine Review Date: 3/1996
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 69
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: CDGIM 032
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Missa Maria Zart |
Jacob Obrecht, Composer
Jacob Obrecht, Composer Peter Phillips, Conductor Tallis Scholars |
Author: David Fallows
It is a work that has long held the attention of musicologists: Marcus van Crevel’s famous edition was preceded by 160 pages of introduction discussing its design and numerology. And nobody has ever explained why it survives in only a single source – a funny print by a publisher who produced no other known music book. However, most critics agree that this is one of Obrecht’s last and most glorious works, even if it leaves them tongue-tied. Rob C. Wegman’s recent masterly study of Obrecht’s Masses put it in a nutshell: “Forget the imitation, it seems to tell us, be still, and listen”.
There is room for wondering whether all of it needs to be quite so slow: an earlier record, by the Prague Madrigal Singers (Supraphon, 6/72 – nla), got through it in far less time. Moreover, Obrecht is in any case a very strange composer, treating his dissonances far more freely than most of his contemporaries, sometimes running sequential patterns beyond their limit, making extraordinary demands of the singers in terms of range and phrase-length. That is, there may be ways of making the music run a little more fluidly, so that the irrational dissonances do not come across as clearly as they do here. But in most ways it is hard to fault Peter Phillips’s reading of this massive work.
With only eight singers on the four voices, he takes every detail seriously. And they sing with such conviction and skill that there is hardly a moment when the ear is inclined to wander. As we have come to expect, The Tallis Scholars are technically flawless and constantly alive. Briefly, the disc is a triumph. But, more than that, it is a major contribution to the catalogue, unflinchingly presenting both the beauties and the apparent flaws of this extraordinary work. Phew!'
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