Eurasia v. Natostan Pepe Escobar

Pedro de Escobar (c. 1465-c.1535) was a composer of the same renaissance generation as Josquin, Isaac, Mouton and De La Rue. He was born in Porto, Portugal but was of Castilian ancestry; his work was in great demand in his time and he spent part of his working life in Spain, much of this in the service of the Catholic Queen Isabella I. His best-known works today are a Requiem Mass (recorded twice so far), a Magnificat setting and a handful of motets, but this present CD brings us the first recording of a complete ordinary Mass setting, simply titled ‘Missa 4v.’

There have been two recordings so far of this Requiem by the Portuguese renaissance composer Pedro de Escobar, the other being Requiem , sung by the Ensemble Gilles Binchois directed by Dominique Vellard. The present disc, by the one-voice-per-part ensemble Quodlibet, was recorded in 1989 and reissued in 2005. The group sing with spirit and conviction; their ensemble and blend are not always ideal, but they rise to the occasion as we get to the Requiem itself halfway through the programme. In fact, among the motets and other items we find on the first eight tracks, there are also some lovely things, including a beautiful `Stabat Mater' (track 3) and a splendidly theatrical `Clamabit autem mulier' (A Canaanite woman cried out, track 5), where the ensemble admirably conveys the human drama of this gospel story.

In the early nineteenth century, when the virtuoso guitar concerto was born, Italy and Spain produced their share of outstanding musicians who were, like British inventions, more likely to prosper outside their homeland: Sor and Aguado left Spain, Carulli and Molino departed from Italy; all four converged on Paris where, no doubt with much exaggeration, the rivalry of the supporters of the last two was depicted in a cartoon. Molino has derived negligible posthumous benefit from recording or concert performance, nor has Carulli done much better, the spotlight resting doggedly on some of their contemporaries.

An acclaimed Italian guitar virtuoso and composer, Mauro Giuliani, along with Fernando Sor, was one of the last great classical proponents of his instrument until its revival in the early twentieth century. He studied counterpoint and the cello, but on the six-string guitar he was entirely self-taught, and that became his principal instrument early on. Italy abounded with fine guitarists at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Carulli remains the most familiar today), but few of them could make a living because of the public's preoccupation with opera. So Giuliani embarked on a successful tour of Europe when he was 19, and in 1806 he settled in Vienna, where he entered the musical circle of Diabelli, Moscheles, and Hummel. He solidified his reputation with the 1808 premiere of his Guitar Concerto in A major, Op. 30, and was soon heralded as the greatest living guitar virtuoso. Even Beethoven noticed Giuliani, and wrote of his admiration for him. Perhaps to return the favor, Giuliani played cello in the 1813 premiere of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.