Search - Tallis, Magnificat, Cave :: Spem in Alium / Lamentations / Mass & Motets

Indescribable

Ben Campbell | Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand | 12/03/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a CD for serious Tallis lovers. Magnificat have come of age in this recording, with musically sound and dicpilined renderings of some very difficult works. The Spem in Alium is possibly the best recording I have ever heard. It rivals the Tallis Scholars, and that's saying something. It definitely blows the Camdridge Singers' version out of the water. Imagiune that! Something that shows up John Rutter's choir at the height of its perfection!For anyone who doesn't know, "Spem In Alium" is a motet in forty parts. It is huge. Ten minutes of pure musical delight. A sea of sound on which false relations and glorious moving lines float by almost unnoticed. And yet it posesses moments of such intense intimacy - e.g. between the first half-force entry and the full frontal forty part assault, and again after that assualt is finished. This choir displays fantastic musicality. They do so much with the phrases, the shapes and textures, and so flawlessly it is amazing. My only musical criticism is of the basses in some passages, for instance the start of Salvator Mundi, where admittedly they do have to have a strong presence throughout the phrase, but there could be something more done to it to make it more interesting!But I digress. The whole CD is basied on one voice to one part - just as Tallis wrote. In the hands of such musical performers, and with a sympathetic conductor, the results are beyond belief. As I implied before, the Spem in Alium is the star of the show, but the Lamentations are amazing - there are a few moments where the voices fail the minds - particualy at the start of phrases (e.g. "Ghimel" where the solo tenor is exposed. However, it is apparent from the very beginning that these are singers who love Tallis and undertand his wriing in a way that no conductor can ever teach, nor engineer counterfeit. Philip Cave is to be congratulated, more for his construction of such a group than his conducting, which is obviously first class nonetheless.I challenge anyone to come up with a better recording of Tallis. I'm sure you will come up lacking.Summary - get yourself a good stereo, get this CD, get an hour's free time, and marvel."