In two of my recent reviews of seasonal
music I have drawn attention to three
recordings by the Gabrieli Consort and
Players directed by Paul McCreesh. It
was my intention to offer reviews of
all three of these CDs, but my colleague
Dan Morgan has had the same idea and
beaten me to the draw in the case of
the Lutheran Mass for Christmas Morning,
with music by Michael Prætorius
et al (439 250-2). I agree with every
enthusiastic word of his
review.
Just in case he’s also
working on A Venetian Christmas,
I’d better say what I have to say as
quickly as possible. In fact, I could
be very brief: go out and buy this recording,
a miracle of scholarly reconstruction
and very enjoyable, too.
McCreesh is a long-standing
master of the scholarly-but-enjoyable
reconstruction. He first came to the
notice of the record-collecting public
with another Venetian reconstruction
for the Virgin label, A Venetian
Coronation 1595, music for the enthronement
of the Doge, which still retains its
full-price place in the catalogue (7
59006 2). After one more such reconstruction,
that of the Burgundian Banquet du
Vœu (deleted but well worth searching
for), Virgin let him slip through their
fingers to DG Archiv, who recorded him
in a reconstructed Venetian Vespers
service, another highly recommendable
recording which, inexplicably, never
seems to have caught on as well as the
other reconstructions (Monteverdi, Rigatti,
etc, now at bargain-price on 476 1868,
2 CDs for around £7-£8 in the UK).
Recordings of Schütz’s
Christmas Vespers (463 046-2)
and Bach’s Epiphany Mass (457
631-2, 2 CDs) followed, as did the present
Venetian Christmas CD. A DVD
of Christmas in Rome (Palestrina,
Vivaldi’s Gloria, etc, in collaboration
with The English Concert/Trevor Pinnock,
on 073 4361) completes the series to
date apart from the items contributed
from his various Christmas recordings
to The Baroque Christmas Album
(DG 477 5762). (Are there any more in
the pipeline?)
The Doge and Signoria
of Venice processed from the Ducal Palace
to St Mark’s at 2.30 p.m. on the afternoon
of Christmas Eve. During the next six
and a half hours they heard Vespers,
Compline, Matins, during which the lights
of the basilica were gradually illuminated,
and finally the first of the three Masses
of the Nativity, brought forward by
papal dispensation from midnight. The
Vespers and Matins would have received
elaborate musical accompaniment from
an augmented group of musicians – one
reviewer even, mistakenly, has described
the whole event as ‘Christmas Vespers’
– but the main musical delights would
have been reserved for the Mass.
This CD presents an
informed attempt to reconstruct the
music of that Mass. There are three
elements: the plainchant, the polyphonic
setting, and the interspersed instrumental
and choral music. The chant employed
at Venice was different in some respects
from the norm of the Roman rite, though
less so than that of the Ambrosian rite
at Milan and much less so than the Mozarabitic
rite preserved at Toledo. The Venetian
chants are contained in the Graduale
del Tesoro and these have been employed
in this recording.
The polyphonic setting,
Cipriano de Rore’s Missa Præter
rerum seriem, is a cantus firmus
work, based on a motet by Josquin;
de Rore was himself briefly maestro
di capella at St Mark’s and Monteverdi
is known both to have preserved several
such stile antico settings at
Venice in the early seventeenth century
and to have had a high opinion of the
music of Cipriano. It is an appropriate
choice here because it fits the festal
occasion, yet contrasts with the more
flamboyant music of Gabrieli and both
contrast with the plainsong propers.
The text of the original Josquin 6-part
motet refers to the appearance of god-as-man
beyond the natural order of things:
Præter rerum seriem / parit
deum hominem / virgo mater. A score
of the motet is available online;
another
(more authentic?) version is also
available from the same source.
Gabrieli himself provides
the third element. The opening organ
Intonazione is meditative and
restrained, but the 16-part setting
of Audite principes (don’t you
just hate it when the computer thinks
it’s smarter than you and changes principes
to principles?) which follows
really gets us into the festive mood,
with its invocation to the princes and
inhabitants of the earth to give ear
to the news that the Saviour is born.
They could hardly fail to give ear (auribus
percipite) to the battery of cornets,
sackbuts, dulcian, etc., which accompany
the three soloists, quietly at first
but soon at full blast. This really
is Gabrieli at his rip-roaring best
and it sets the scene superbly when
it is as well performed as here. The
Venetian historian Francesco Sansovino
records that the original congregation
felt that they had heard no finer music,
but what we hear on this recording must
at least run those original performers
a very close second. In fact, though
we can never know, they almost certainly
excel them. The high parts were presumably
originally sung by castrati whose sound,
of course, cannot be reproduced, but
the four falsettists on this recording
(no female voices) do a good job of
replacing them. One of them, Robert
Harre Jones, also plays one of the organ
parts. My personal idea of Heaven leans
towards English Tudor polyphony, Taverner
and Sheppard in particular, but the
de Rore/Gabrieli combination here comes
pretty close – listen to track 13, Gabrieli’s
Salvator noster, and you’ll be
sold on it. The recording just breaks
the 80-minute barrier but you’ll hardly
notice the passage of time.
The other Gabrieli
items are similarly exuberant and similarly
well performed. The Canzon noni toni
replaces the usual Gradual, another
Venetian custom; another organ Intonazione
and Salvator noster (Our Saviour
is born this day), provide the Offertory,
with the vocalists again wreathed about
with cornetts, sackbuts and organs.
Similarly an organ Toccata (improvised)
and Gabrieli’s O Jesu mi dulcissime
(O my sweetest Jesus), with singers
and organs only, mark the Elevation
of the Host. The Canzon duodecimi
toni at the Communion and Quem
vidistis pastores (Whom saw ye,
O Shepherds) after the Blessing, round
off a very satisfying recording, the
full panoply of brass joining the singers
again for the final item. This, like
most of the Gabrieli insertions, is
divided into parts for three ‘choirs’;
only O Jesu mi dulcissime and
the Canzon duodecimi toni are
for two ‘choirs’, which rather tends
to support the modern suspicion that
the traditional concept of antiphonal
performance at St Mark’s is something
of an over-simplification. The illustration
on the cover of the Prætorius
CD seems to suggest a similar three-choir
arrangement but I don’t wish to get
into deep scholarly waters here.
Some of the elements
of the reconstruction are controversial.
Quem vidistis, which seems to
have survived in incomplete form, has
been extensively re-worked by Hugh Keyte,
convincingly to my ears at least. As
performed here, it provides a fitting
conclusion to a glorious recording.
Both A Venetian
Christmas and the Lutheran Christmas
Mass are superbly performed, excellently
recorded and endowed with scholarly
and informative notes by John Bettley
and Paul McCreesh himself. Brinkburn
Abbey makes a good substitute acoustic-wise
for St Mark’s; Roskilde is, of course,
an ideal venue on the other CD. I couldn’t
begin to choose between them, so I recommend
that you buy both. If you hurry, you
will find that one on-line retailer
has a special offer on Archiv CDs at
close to DM’s target price, £7 plus
postage, but you will have to get a
move on. Both these CDs are too good
to save for Christmas; order them both
now.
Brian Wilson
Gabrieli Consort and Players (on authentic
instruments, pitch a’=440)/Paul McCreesh
471 333-2 [80:57]
