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Reviewer: Fabrice
Fitch
A composer who nearly vanished without trace is given his due
Géry de Ghersem (1573-1630) was one of several composers whose outputs were largely destroyed in a series of catastrophes in l8th-century Portugal. Out of hundreds of pieces, the work recorded here is the only complete one that remains. Based on Guerrero’s famous setting of Ave Virgo sanctissima, the seven-voice Mass reveals a composer of real fluency and ability, with a knack for the full, rich sonorities that increasingly preoccupied the composers working in the Spanish orbit at the turn of the 17th century. The characteristic turns of Guerrero’s motet are everywhere recognisable but Ghersem adds extra voices to the scoring of his model. The work shows off Eric van Nevel’s ensemble at its best: an organ is included and the resulting texture often had me thinking that there might be more instruments involved. Such a “trick of the light” may also be credited to Accent’s sound recording: rarely in fact has Currende blossomed so fully on disc.
The disc rounds off with several settings of Marian antiphons by Ghersem’s colleagues such as Philippe Rogier and Peter Philips (and more Guerrero). These make a less striking impression, partly because of Currende’s tendency to downplay the music’s dramatic potential, which other ensembles have been less shy to exploit. Saying that, there was little to set the pulse racing in Pieter Cornet’s organ verses on the Regina coeli plainsong, which by the 10-minute mark had long outstayed its welcome as a palate-cleanser. Never mind; Ghersem’s Mass may seldom be recorded again, so we should be grateful that it has been done so well.
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