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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
glorious, solemn reconstructions of these pieces, some of which were performed not only in Spain but in the New World.
Circumdederunt is one of the most awesome Rennaissance motets, and this is the best performance I've ever heard.
Dark-hued and terrifically Hispanic, one can practically feel the church draped in black and the hatchments placed against the wall...
Circumdederunt is one of the most awesome Rennaissance motets, and this is the best performance I've ever heard.
Dark-hued and terrifically Hispanic, one can practically feel the church draped in black and the hatchments placed against the wall...
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This is another of Paul McCreesh's reconstructions of masses "as they might have been celebrated" and this is well up to standard. Never shy of employing immense musical forces where appropriate, McCreesh is very restrained here with the accompaniment being limited to a single dulcian-like instrument which adds depth and sonority to the sound but never dominates the singers. It is more in the style of his excellent recording of Victoria's Requiem Victoria : Requiem : Officium Defunctorum (1605) /Gabrieli Consort · McCreesh than, say, the Venetian Vespers Venetian Vespers (Monteverdi · Rigatti · Grandi· Cavalli) /Gabrieli Consort & Players · McCreesh. Because it is a reconstruction of the service there is a lot of chant of various kinds between the polyphonic movements of the mass, which I like a lot: as Tess Knighton once put it, the polyphonic movements are like "galleons sailing on a sea of chant," and it works very well.
Morales's Requiem is a profound, moving work of great beauty. McCreesh paces it very slowly which, combined with the low pitch and very resonant acoustic, brings out for me the ceremony and pathos of a funeral service without ever becoming tedious or maudlin. These characteristics also produce a very full, smoothed-out sound so it's not a recording for anyone who wants to pick out individual lines in the polyphony, but for a really beautiful musical experience you can't go wrong here.
In short, this is a very beautiful disc, full of scholarship, fine music and excellent performances. Very warmly recommended.
Morales's Requiem is a profound, moving work of great beauty. McCreesh paces it very slowly which, combined with the low pitch and very resonant acoustic, brings out for me the ceremony and pathos of a funeral service without ever becoming tedious or maudlin. These characteristics also produce a very full, smoothed-out sound so it's not a recording for anyone who wants to pick out individual lines in the polyphony, but for a really beautiful musical experience you can't go wrong here.
In short, this is a very beautiful disc, full of scholarship, fine music and excellent performances. Very warmly recommended.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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5 reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
My favorite McCreesh recording
29 Mar 2000
Format:Audio CD
Even by Paul McCreesh' high standards, this recording is a marvel. The generous acoustics, the bass-heavy chorus, and the dark accompaniment of a Spanish dulcian (called Bajon) create the hair-rising sonority that is so symbolic of the profundity of death. The choral sound is very open, in a characteristically Spanish way; it comes close to being a "wall of sound," but the textual detail remains traceable. In fact, the more austere the general mood of the work, the more effective are the sections in which the intensity of individual lines is more evident (e.g., Offertorium and the Osannas). The structure of the mass, with the highest and the lowest voices being generally more static than the voices in the middle, seems designed to highlight the value of fleeting human existence in the middle of perpetual dichotomies. As is usual with McCreesh, the mass is placed in its proper liturgical context (and the quasi-improvized choral chants are not even boring!). The disc ends with Alonso Lobo's magnificent motet Versa est in luctum, notable for its high-flying top line.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Spanish Music of 16th Century
22 May 2001
Format:Audio CD
Cristobal de Morales is considered one of the most influential Spanish composers of the great imperial century of Spain, beginning in 1492 with the fall of Granada, last Moorish kingdom in Spain, to Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castille, and ending in the 1590's with the death of Phillip the Second and the bankruptcy of the Spanish crown. The famous events of this century in the Iberian world include the voyages of Christopher Columbus, the conquest of Mexico by Hernan Cortez (1591-21), the darker conquest of Peru by Pizarro, the famous battle of Lepanto in 1571, in which the allied Catholic fleets of the Mediterranean under the command of Don Juan de Austria (brother of Charles V) defeated the Ottoman Turkish fleet on the west coast of Greece (a battle in which the young ensign Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra became partially and permanently disabled), the several armadas which Phillip II sent against England, the independence of the Netherlands under William the Silent, and the final disillusionment of Spain with the outcome of an age in whose beginning so much promise had been seen.
Cristobal de Morales' work is shaped by the predominant importance of religious composition in 16th Century Spain, with this requiem representing one of the high points of this school of composition. Based on historical research, it is deemed most likely that this requiem was performed at the requiem services for both the Emperor Charles V of Hapsburg in Toledo, and his son Phillip II of Spain. This work was performed in Mexico City at the reqiuem masses for both kings, and should be heard in the context not only of the influence of Spanish composition on the New World, but also in the context of the tremendous aptitude of the pre-Columbian peoples of New Spain for the European music to which the Castillians and Portuguese exposed them, an aptitude which is touched upon in the film "The Mission" (although in the South American setting, but no less true of the peoples of Mexico and Central America). The audio quality of this album is excellent and the high quality artistic direction and performance of this work are an outcome of decades of increased interest and recording activity in the European Community in the area of early music. This recording is a must for any student of choral and early music or the artisitic and cultural ambiance of 16th Century Mediterranean Europe and New Spain.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Deep Gratitude
9 Sep 2008
I want to thank the reviewers of this recording almost as much as the performers and even the composer. They introduced concepts such as "wall of sound" and "Spanish gloom", which I know shaped my listening experience from the beginning. I would have never downloaded this album, if it weren't for them. If you don't analyze this music, if you just allow yourself to feel, it will slowly dissolve everything else and will start celebrating your essence in all of its greatness. Deepest music I've ever heard. Buy yourself the very best equipment you can afford, or use your ipod, just wait patiently for the feeling. This is music for the dead with the potential to make you real happy and alive. As Kant would have said, it goes right to your senses, emotions, and intellect at the same time.
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