Renaissance Music
Albums
Classical - Released September 28, 2018 | Ramée
Vocal Recitals - Released September 14, 2018 | harmonia mundi
Vocal Recitals - Released August 17, 2018 | deutsche harmonia mundi
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released August 17, 2018 | Ricercar
Classical - Released June 8, 2018 | Arcana
Secular Vocal Music - Released May 25, 2018 | Arcana
Classical - Released May 25, 2018 | Brilliant Classics
Chamber Music - Released April 13, 2018 | ATMA Classique
Contrary to what you might have expected, the ensemble Les Voix Humaines is... a viola ensemble, without a hint of human voice. That said, the often somewhat plaintive discourse of the violas does rather recall the threnodies of the Renaissance and early baroque. And who better than Dowland, with his sombre Lachrimæ, to use purely instrumental sounds to conjure up the most human of emotions and voices? With his collection Lachrimæ, or seaven teares figured in seven passionate pavans, with divers other pavans, galliards and allemands, set forth for the lute, viols, or violons, in five parts published in 1604, Dowland created a whole musical world, most likely aimed at aristocratic amateurs, but one which provided inspiration for all his musical descendants, all the way to Britain and beyond... The five violas of the Voix Humaines and Nigel North's lute have been chosen to accompany these "seaven teares" not only with other pieces from the same book but also with a few works taken from collections published between 1600 and 1612, with the addition of a very rare piece taken from a manuscript.. © SM/Qobuz
Masses, Passions, Requiems - Released March 23, 2018 | Pan Classics
Every single note of this astounding mass of the Holy Virgin from Ghiselin Danckerts (1510-1567) is from the hand of the composer. The remark is by no means trivial, because at the time a good part of the Gregorian repertoire was the subject of thousands of improvisations, unannotated by definition. Yet, Danckerts annotated them, with a luxury of details, so we know precisely what the choirs and the soloists were singing and what they were improvising on the Gregorian sections of his mass (the introit, the hallelujah,…), a great rarity then, all the more so that the composer doesn’t hesitate to reproduce a few singular dissonances coming from implacable melodic logics. He is incidentally known for a few writings in which he clarifies with exactitude the art and the way to sing the sharp notes and the flat notes, to unfold the melisma, etc. Naturally, the polyphonic acts themselves (Kyrie, Credo, etc.) are also the subject of an extravagant harmonic and melodic profusion. It is hard to believe that this music is almost already half a millennium old. Danckerts was accepted as a singer in the papal chapel in 1538 and only left in 1565, not exactly his own choosing since according to his firing letter, he was accused of not having a voice anymore, to indulge in the pleasures with women, to be insanely rich and to be too sick to continue. Well, he wasn’t completely abandoned by the Church since, despite being a vile sinner, he kept on receiving his salary until his death two years later. The magnificent ensemble Cantar Lontano recorded this wonder in the captivating acoustics of two Italian baroque churches, in Pesaro and Castelbellino, neither too resounding nor too dry. © SM/Qobuz
Chamber Music - Released September 8, 2017 | Paradizo
Classical - Released May 19, 2017 | naïve classique
Some people will be angry, others will laugh, but since there are many orphaned lute pieces in English sources that have come down to us with no name at all, Hopkinson Smith has taken the liberty of christening four such pieces in this program with names that seem to suit their musical spirits. The title of the album itself, Mad Dog (admittedly something that doesn’t quite sound like a respectable name for a Renaissance music album, but marketing will be marketing), is taken from such an apocryphal title given my Smith to what is really a galliard by Anthony Holborne found in the 2nd Matthew Holmes Lute Book. Ward’s Repose is a homage to Smith’s deceased musicology teacher… But, as so marvellously said by the Bard, “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, so who cares really what these pieces were or were not called back four hundred years ago, when wen don’t even really know who wrote or arranged some of them – and here again, what’s in a name, be it Dowland, Byrd (whose lute pieces are all rewritings of keyboards works as done by his contemporary Francis Cutting), Johnson, when just the beauty of the music counts… Hopkinson Smith plays an 8-course lute built in the 1970s by Joel van Lennep, one of the world’s foremost lute-doctors and instrument makers. © SM/Qobuz
Sacred Vocal Music - Released March 24, 2017 | ATMA Classique
Secular Vocal Music - Released March 17, 2017 | Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo
Classical - Released March 3, 2017 | L'Encelade
Classical - Released November 18, 2016 | Ars Produktion
Classical - Released October 14, 2016 | L'Encelade
Chamber Music - Released June 10, 2016 | harmonia mundi
Sacred Vocal Music - Released June 3, 2016 | BIS
The main expressive goal of this release by New York Polyphony seems to be the vocal harmonies accomplished by the one-voice-per-part singers and their interaction with the spectacular acoustics of the St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha, Nebraska (a venue known to U.S. Midwesterners but not internationally, and the BIS label and the performers deserve kudos for finding it). It succeeds brilliantly on those counts: the singers of New York Polyphony control not only pitch but vocal timbre to remarkable degrees. The album isn't intended as historically informed performance, yet it actually comes close in some ways to what might have been heard in the time of Palestrina, Victoria, and Guerrero. Palestrina's choirs numbered a few dozen, yet there are records of his music being sung one to a part in smaller situations. And the interpolation of chants and motets into the larger works brings the listener closer to what a Roman churchgoer would have experienced. The end result is a performance of, especially, Palestrina's Missa Papæ Marcelli that's nothing short of revelatory: New York Polyphony's reading stands in the highest possible contrast to the usual choral readings of this work, whose density turns it into a big wash of sound when it is sung by a large group. Although Palestrina himself wouldn't have appreciated the comparison, New York Polyphony's sound in the work is almost madrigalian, and in their use of the timbres of individual voices to bring out Palestrina's control over register they accomplish something genuinely original. Victoria's Missa O quam gloriosum and the smaller pieces by all three composers are hardly less compelling. Highly recommended.
Chamber Music - Released April 29, 2016 | Accent
Classical - Released April 8, 2016 | Evidence