Renaissance Polyphony

The Golden Age of English Polyphony - The Sixteen, Harry Christophers (2009) {10CD Set Hyperion CDS44401~10}
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© 2009 Hyperion Records | CDS44401~10
Classical / Early Music / Renaissance / Polyphony / Plainchant

When The Sixteen embarked upon their recording career back in 1982, few would have been able to predict quite how successful they would become, or how far they would go towards rehabilitating the little-known and barely recorded music of these four master composers of the sixteenth century. In this their 30th anniversary year, we join them in celebrating a Golden Age of Polyphony, and of music-making, by presenting their twelve discs of this repertoire in an attractively packaged (and priced) 10-CD remastered set.

Capilla Flamenca, Psallentes, Westvleteren - Triduum Paschale: Easter In Polyphony and Abbey Chants (2010) {Eufoda 1379}
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© 2010 Eufoda | 1379
Classical / Renaissance / Polyphony / Early Music / Gregorian Chant

The celebration of the Easter Mystery has traditionally been considered to be the core of Christian liturgy. The Triduum Paschale, also known as the Holy Triduum or the Easter Triduum, begins on Holy Thursday and ends on Easter. Pascha is originally a Hebrew word which means transitus, or 'passage': Jesus' passage from death to life, from this world to his heavenly Father (Joh 13:1). The chants which have interpreted the prayers of the Cistercian Order for centuries may best express what an abbey community is about: the deep and unfathomable connection with earth, with man and with God.

Stile Antico's 2015 release on Harmonia Mundi, A Wondrous Mystery, is a sublime collection of Renaissance choral music for Christmas, presented in a pleasant mix of familiar German carols and a mass, with tracks interspersed for the sake of variety. This makes sense in consideration of the group's broad audience, which may know such popular hymns as Michael Praetorius' Ein Kind geborn in Bethlehem and Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, or Johannes Eccard's Übers Gebirg Maria geht and Vom Himmel hoch, yet be somewhat at a loss with the motet and Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis by Jacobus Clemens non Papa, a composer beloved by early music specialists but not exactly a household name for lay listeners. However, the a cappella performances are consistently beautiful and soothing throughout, and the quietly joyous mood of the music fits the album's title perfectly. The 12-voice choir's blend is well-balanced and transparent, and the ambience of All Hallow's Church, Gospel Oak, London gives an ideal resonance for the group's small size and close miking.

Lovers of high-Renaissance polyphony will find much to enjoy with this new CPO release of works by the German composer Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612). Like his contemporary and friend Giovanni Gabrieli, Hassler’s advanced use of polychoral techniques (which would acheive ultimate fruition in the settings of Heinrich Schütz) earned him great fame and recognition in his day. While it’s unlikely that Hassler ever heard his music performed in a program like this, one that intersperses various combinations of solo, instrumental, and choral works, the performances nevertheless provide a fascinating musical glimpse into the work of this rarely recorded master.

Les Sonadori - Cantate Violini! (Florid early baroque songs & polyphony) (2019) {Passacaille 1056}
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© 2019 Passacaille | 1056
Classical / Renaissance / Early Baroque / Period Instruments

The most beautiful polyphonic canzoni, chansons, motets and madrigals, were used like today’s pop standards in the 16th century; musicians would improvise on them, tailoring their playing and imagination to each other. The colourful and varied selection of works on this recording is made up of different combinations of voices and instruments. A special aspect, a kind of renaissance violin band stands at the centre of this project: ensembles of violins were generally used to accompany certain moments in the Mass, at banquets, receptions, princely entertainments, entries into cities and palaces, diplomatic negotiations and sacred and secular processions as well as the long hours of dancing that followed the evening meal in northern Italy from the 1530s onwards, until the 1580s and 1590s announced the arrival of the new baroque style.

The general trend in recordings of Renaissance polyphony has been toward typing music to specific surroundings: royal festivities, religious feast days, and the like. This collection by the Huelgas Ensemble goes in the other direction, providing three CDs' worth of music ranging from the medieval era to Anton Bruckner, with most of the pieces falling into some stretch of the High Renaissance. The music was recorded, beautifully, in a Romanesque church near Dijon in 2018, and the program is unified loosely by a set of general guidelines for the selections at that event: the music emphasized "unknown repertoire, undeservedly obscure composers, and experiments that fall outside the scope of the normal concert season."

Once, Portugal ruled the waves, sending explorers round the Cape of Good Hope to India and across the wide Atlantic to Brazil. After the death of King Sebastian and the end of the Age of Discovery, however, Spain ruled Portugal, and it is from this period that the works on the disc called Masterpieces of Portuguese Polyphony come. But although the sacred a cappella music here was clearly influenced by the Spanish sacred a cappella music of the same period, it is still clearly not Spanish music. In these beautifully sculpted and richly textured performances by the Choir of Westminster Cathedral under Master of Music James O'Donnell, there is a clarity, a lightness, an openness, and a spiritual optimism evident that Spanish music from the same period often lacks. Featuring five motets and a set of Lamentations by Manuel Cardoso, a Panis angelicus by João Lourenço Rebelo, five motets and a Magnificat by Pedro de Cristo, and an Alma rememptoris mater by Aires Fernandez, this 2007 reissue largely consists of works heretofore known only to listeners who heard the disc when it was first released in 1992, but anyone who enjoys sacred choral music of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century will surely enjoy this disc. Hyperion's sound is lush, round, and full.

This final LOiseau-Lyre set presents some of the most significant Medieval & Renaissance albums recorded by one of the most authoritative Early Music labels.