Once Again, More is Less
Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 10/21/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"When it comes to recordings of Renaissance polyphony at least, "more" is almost always "less". That is, more voices make less musical excitement; "one on a part" is the way to go. There seems to be a notion in circulation that doubling or tripling the voices on each line of a polyphonic mass or motet will produce a richer, grander sound. It just isn't so, not in concert and certainly not in recording. Voices, like any other instruments, produce subtle interference patterns based on microtonal differences of tuning and resonance. Thus each line becomes a compromise, an 'affect by committee". There's only one basic problem with "The Brabant Ensemble", and that is that it's a choir, on this CD a choir of sixteen that manages to sound awfully much like thirty-two. Aside from the slightly spongy timbre that results from doubling less-than-soloistic voices, The Brabant Ensemble also tends to render every piece they sing at the same mellifluous but static "tempo of solemnity".
I wish I could be more enthusiastic about this group. Who else would dare to issue a whole CD of the music of Dominique Phinot (c.1510 - c.1561)? Or of Pierre de Manchicourt, Nicolas Gombert, or Thomas Crequillon? Conductor Stephen Rice and the singers of the Brabants deserve enormous credit and support for attempting to recruit an audience for such sublime but obscure composers. And hey, they're not so bad. They rank with The Sixteen or Ensemble Officium, better than the Oxford Camerata or King's College, but not on a par with The Tallis Scholars or The Clerks' Group, and not even close to The Orlando Consort.
Dominique Phinot was not by any means an unknown in his own lifetime. He was acclaimed as one of the finest successors to Josquin and his motets were published in Lyons and widely circulated. Phinot's surviving compositions include more than 110 motets, two masses, a vespers, and two books of chansons/madrigals. What little we know of his life suggests that he worked primarily in Urbino, Italy, and that he was executed for homosexuality sometime before 1561. His motets for two antiphonal choirs are among the earliest works in that format and must certainly have influenced the development of polychoral music by Willaert, the Gabrielis, and other later composers.
This is definitely a CD to buy and hear, a rare treasure for lovers of polyphony, even though the performance merits only four stars."
