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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fine addition to the Rubbra discography, 15 Nov 2000
Rubbra's choral works form an important part of his output and this disc consists entirely of pieces for unaccompanied choir. The 'Five Motets' (1934) is an early work in which he set various mystical poets. There are many moments of great beauty in these pieces, echoing the mystical imagery of the poems. Next come a group of four carols collected together for the purpose of this recording. They are lovely and fairly simple songs, the second one being in French. Rubbra set the Mass five times, and the Missa à 3 is the third. It was commissioned to suit a very small choir and is sung in three parts - hence the name. The Sanctus is very beautiful for all its 52 seconds! The Mass ends with a haunting Agnus Dei. A little gem of a work. Lauda Sion (1960) is Rubbra's biggest a cappella work and one of his finest, requiring a soprano and a baritone soloist and a double choir. It is an antiphonal piece. The text is by St Thomas Aquinas. According to Judy Martin in her excellent notes, the scoring was reduced to one voice per part in verses 12 and 16. A wonderful piece. This is Rubbra's 2nd setting of The Beatitudes. It has a quite extraordinary unearthly beauty. A critic, Eric Blom, wrote of the Five Madrigals that to write in this form a composer 'must be that rare phenomenon, a twentieth-century musician who expresses himself with natural ease through the medium of polyphony. Edmund Rubbra is such a musician'*. These are settings of the delightful poetry of Thomas Campion. The central madrigal, 'Beauty is but a painted hell', with it sad atmosphere and imitative calls of 'ay me' is of special note. Rubbra followed up immediately with Two Madrigals, also to texts by Campion. The final work is the Mass in Honour of St Theresa of Avila (1981). This is the composer's last Mass and his last major choral work. It was first performed on a BBC Radio 3 broadcast. There is no Credo. The Kyrie has an austere beauty and the Gloria contains some virtuosic writing for the choir. Voces Sacrae are an outstanding ensemble and give a superb performance here under Judy Martin. Her notes are excellent and she even appears to have written the French ones herself! The recording, made in the Chapel of Westminster College, Oxford, is nicely reverberant. *quoted from 'The Music of Edmund Rubbra' by Ralph Scott Grover, Scolar Press, 1993
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~ Edmund Rubbra
~ Rohan de Saram
See all 28 tracks on this disc
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