Search - Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Georg Muffat, Antonio Bertali :: Biber: Litaniæ de Sancto Josepho; Muffat: Missa in labore requies

A voice teacher and early music fan

George Peabody | Planet Earth | 12/07/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"CANTUS COLLN, CONCERTO PALATINO, KONRAD JUNGHANEL TRANSPORT US IN GRAND STYLE BACK TO THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY!

Up until the beginning of the 19th century the powerful prince-archbishops of Salzburg encouraged the creation of an extemely rich output of religious music. Thus, for instance, the compositions that Biber and Muffat, destined for performance in the Cathedral of Salzburg, are among the summits of the genre, not only in the wealth of their vocal and instrumental forms, but also in their sumptuous sonorities. In order to recreate the acoustic conditions of those in the Cathedral in Salzburg, this recording was made in the Abbey or Melk, thereby offering an ideal symbiosis of place, music and performers.



Ignaz Franz von Biber(1644-1704) was a virtuoso violinest and a highly innovative composer. His compositions stand as the most startlingly advanced music of the Baroque era. He often eschewed the sobriety of a religious text in favor of a glorious antiphonal choral texture.



George Muffat's(1653-1704) Mass may well have been performed for a feast day in Salzburg, for it is a shining example of the late seventeenth-century Salzburg Mass. It is presented here with instrumental interjections as it would have been in actual church use.



The recording is given a further dose of authenticity of sound by the location in the Abbey of Melk, a large resonant space which lends some of the aura of majesty it might have had in the Salzburg Cathedral. His 'Missa in labore requies' is a 24-part mass for two vocal and three instrumental choirs with continuo.



The performance herein is excellent- Cantus Colln's singers move easily between solo singing and well-blended ensemble singing; Concerto Palatino provides robust accompaniment for the choral works and brilliant brass utterences in the instrumental pieces. An early music lovers delight!



GRAMOPHONE 3/99 says: 'Cantus Colln' and the pre-eminent cornett and sackbutters,'Concerto Palatino', are plainly in their element, blazing a thrilling trail of dynamic declamation, manipulating colorific effect and always with a focused immediacy in the vocal line.....'

"

Polychoral Grandeur

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 10/31/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Salzburg has had a bad rap since the apotheosis of Mozart. He despised the place as a stiff-necked provincial backwater. A generation earlier, Salzburg was surely one of the greatest musical scenes of all time, with extravagant resources available to its episcopal court composers. Heinrich Biber has emerged very recently as everybody's favorite rediscovered Baroque master. Twenty years ago, there were just a couple of LPs of his violin sonatas, but now there are pages of listings of his choral as well as his chamber music. I'm planning to review three recently-acquired performances of very large-scale ceremonial music originally performed in Salzburg cathedral: 1. Biber, "Litaniae de Sancto Josepho", Cantus Colln & Concerto Palatino; 2. Biber, "Missa Alleluja", Gradus ad Parnassum & Concerto Palatino; 3. Biber, "Missa Salisburgensis", Gabrieli Consort & Musica Antiqua Koln.



Biber is the headliner on this recording of his Litaniae De Sancto Josepho, but in fact most of the disk is devoted to the Missa in labore requies by Georg Muffat, an equally fine composer who hasn't caught the public's eye as widely as Biber. Muffat's mass (in 5 choirs, 24 parts, vocal and instrumental)is full of acoustic pageantry and variety; there are wonderful echo effects, profound basso rumbles, delicate kite-flights of sopranos and cornetti. Many of the same people performed in this recording as in the CD of Biber's Missa Alleluja. Both performances are musically stupendous, but I'm giving a slight edge to the Missa Alleluja purely on the grounds of electronics. The sound on this disk tends to distort (a little!)at the volume required to hear the music realistically. At lower volumes, too much is lost of the polychoral texture. Stereophonic separation is absolutely essential to make sense of this music; it's there on the CD but it gets lost even on high quality speakers. I enjoy this disk much more on my Bose headphones than in a normal room with normal equipment. That's a warning to those who don't like or don't have noise-canceling headphones.



The edge goes to the corps of trumpeters on the other CD also. Since trumpets play a huge role in this super-ceremonial music, that's a significant edge. Nevertheless, a five-star CD! Buy it! It won't stay available for long."

Biber, MUFFAT

alberto balducci | 11/25/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"the item do not arrived to parque mora 196 , lima PERU...

ALBERTO BALDUCCI"