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BBC Music (06/2019)
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SDG731



Code-barres / Barcode : 843183073122


 

Appréciation d'ensemble / Overall evaluation :
 

Reviewer: Berta Joncus
 

Like John Eliot Gardiner’s 1998 Christmas album Once as I remember, this album stems from mystery plays his mother designed: mounted at the Gardiners’ Spring head estate for and with its community, these plays were a series of scenes mixing music, recitation, tableaux vivants and mimed action. Marabel Gardiner started the Easter plays in 1963; a year later, John Eliot, then at Cambridge, became more involved, choosing the music – chant, carol, motets, movements from Schütz’s Historia der Auferstehung Jesu Christi (1623) – in volving the Monteverdi Choir he’d just started, and singing the Evangelist’s part.
 

Now re-invented, the Spring head Easter Play acquires bigger forces (including a period band) and a tougher repertory. The simpler original numbers include some debut recordings, and the new numbers – by Cornysh, L’héritier, Rheinberger and Giovanni Gabrieli – put the Monteverdi Choir’s prodigious gifts on display. Perfection of blend, plushness of textures, and visceral impact of musical choices are all world class, especially in ‘O vos omnes’ (Gesualdo), ‘Dum transisset Sabbatum’ (Taverner), and the bubbly ‘Surrexit pastor bonus’ (Gabrieli). The Schütz sags a bit, due to imbalance between the male soloists, but this does not diminish the luminous beauty of this Easter offering.

 

 

 

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