Texte paru dans: / Appeared in: Early Music Today (06-08/2015)
Signum
SIGCD408
Code-barres / Barcode : 0635212040829
(ID517)
Reviewer: Edward
Breen
This searingly beautiful album is the first installment of a
new recording project by Contrapunctus reconstructing and exploring
repertoire from the famous Baldwin Partbooks, an important preserve of
Latin-texted music spanning several generations of Tudor composers. Each
album will explore a different religious theme: in this present case,
mortality. Happily, such themes provide a structure through which to hear
lesser-known works alongside those now firmly established in the early music
‘canon’. For instance, this disc contains both John Sheppard’s well-known
and vast antiphon ‘Media Vita’, and Dericke Gerarde’s delightful but
lesser-known ‘Sive vigilem’, both wonderfully expressive settings.
Throughout the disc, Contrapunctus offer some of the most unreservedly
beautiful performances of Tudor polyphony of recent years with a
near-perfect blend of young, flexible voices at the peak of their powers. I
particularly appreciate the firm anchoring flow of the lower voices and the
eager polyphonic momentum generated by the sprightly upper-voices. Yet
considering the wide range of polyphonic styles covered, it is surprising
that Contrapunctus opt for a similar intimate, nuanced sound throughout. The
results are expressive, but contained. ‘Media vita’, in particular, is
rather too sepia-tinted for my tastes. I prefer a more demonstrative
performance style for larger-scale works.
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