Texte paru dans: / Appeared in:
Early Music Today (03-05/2014)
Signum
SIGCD344
0635212034422
(ID356)
Victoria’s set of Tenebrae was published in 1385 in a collection that included the Lamentations of Jeremiah. It consists of six groups of three responsories, two for each of the three days leading up to Easter.
Sections for four-part choir — the responds— frame the versicle, where Victoria not only reduces the texture but varies the scoring. What is not varied is the tonality: it would be a mistake to play the disc in one go. Nigel Short avoids monotony through tempo changes and dynamic contrast: some sections are splendidly vigorous; others — the end of ‘Seniores populi’, for instance — are magically rapt. ‘Tenebrae factae sunt’ is appropriately transposed down by an octave and sung by the tenors and basses. The eponymous choir, 13 strong, is exemplary.
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