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Gimell
CD: CDGIM043
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VICTORIA
"Lamentations Of Jeremiah"
Tallis Scholars
LIMITED OFFER PRICE
ONLY £10.49
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Victoria's nine Lamentations contain some of his most intense, mystical and moving music and rank alongside the Requiem as one of his greatest achievements.
There is an impression that in their worship the Spanish have a fierceness, coupled to a mysticism, which sets them apart. This way of thinking was current a long time ago: Michelangelo, when asked by the Florentine painter Pontormo how he could best please a Spanish patron, replied that he should ‘show much blood and nails'. Such rawness has readily been attributed to their music, too. My experience is that only Victoria's music has quite this special intensity of feeling to it, and then only in his six-voice Requiem and music for Holy Week. But it is this intensity, in the end, which makes him so distinctive, not only in the wider European context but also amongst his compatriots.
Since the Holy Week services were the most dramatic and darkest in the Church's year, Victoria's expressivity was given full range. The 1585 publication, known as the Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae, included all Victoria's music for Holy Week. It is all of a plangent austerity which, when put alongside his six-voice Requiem of 1605, has long been held to represent Victoria and his Spanishness at its most typical and best. Victoria clearly intended his nine Laments to be heard as an overall musical experience which, however effective across three days of liturgy, makes them ideal for a recording. As they proceed the number of voices gradually increases, with the final ‘Jerusalem' section always expanding the scoring, so that there is a crescendo not only within each Lament but within each set of three, and then over the nine. Most of the nine start with a four-voice section, normally leading to a five-voice ‘Jerusalem'. However the third Lament on both Thursday and Friday starts in five and ends in six; and the third Lament on Saturday starts in six and ends in eight. A feature of this process is that the amount of counterpoint does not increase, so Victoria's chords simply become more monumental. By the time we reach the eight-voice section, which is partly for double choir, the effect is deeply impressive.
Peter Phillips
“Throughout the whole programme the standard of singing is of the very highest order. Tuning, blend and ensemble are immaculate. The voices are balanced impeccably and the diction is admirably clear. Furthermore, the recorded sound that engineer Philip Hobbs has produced is really lovely and pleasingly atmospheric. It is, in short, an outstanding release that celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of Gimell in the most distinguished manner possible..”
Musicweb
“Victoria's dramatic austerity...is wonderfully captured by the 16 mixed voices of the Tallis Scholars, with their perfectly natural phrasing and carefully weighted tone; the recording, made in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford, has the same naturalness and rapt presence.”
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
Artists:
The Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips
Works:
Lamentations for Maundy Thursday, Lamentations for Good Friday, Lamentations for Holy Saturday
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OTHER WAYS TO ORDER
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Bognor Regis,
West Sussex PO21 1RJ
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you can dial either 01243 827712 or 01243 842615
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