MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
AmazonUK AmazonUS

 

Nicolas GOMBERT (c.1495–c.1560)
Tribulatio et angustia: four- and five-part motets
Tribulatio et angustia [8:58]
Hortus conclusus es [4:34]
Aspice Domine [10:40]
Virgo sancta Katherina [3:02]
Inviolata [1:44]
Inviolata, integra, et casta es, Maria [7:43]
Ne reminsicaris, Domine [5:57]
Pater noster [5:07]
Ave Maria [4:32]
Ergone vitae [7:11]
Ave Sanctissima Maria [6:37]
The Brabant Ensemble/Stephen Rice
rec. chapel of The Queen’s College, Oxford, 1-3 September 2006. DDD.
Texts and translations included.
HYPERION CDA67614 [66:05]
 

 

Experience Classicsonline


The arrival from Hyperion of four CDs recorded by the Brabant Ensemble, sent with my review copy of the latest Gothic Voices reissue (CDH55295 – The Study of Love – see review) allows me to do some retrospective second-thinking on recordings which colleagues have already reviewed.
 

Gombert is not exactly a household name, even among specialists in renaissance music.  In part Gombert has himself to blame: his dismissal from the Imperial service and exile to the galleys for the violation of a boy, probably one of his own choristers, is understandably one of the few facts generally known about him and raises the question: can a paedophile possibly produce great music?  This one certainly can, even if much of the music here is of a penitential nature. 

The Brabant Ensemble didn’t begin Gombert’s modern rehabilitation, which was already under way with two CDs recorded by The Tallis Scholars and Peter Phillips in 2001.  Those Gimell CDs contain all eight of Gombert’s late-period settings of the Magnificat, four per CD, each with an appropriate antiphon sung before and after (CDGIM037 and CDGIM038).  Readers of a nervous disposition, frightened off by the lurid demon on the Hyperion cover, may well find those Gimell recordings more to their liking – they are excellently sung and recorded.

I have recently downloaded these recordings, in CD quality sound, in wma format, and intend to review them in more detail in my November 2008 Download Roundup.  John Phillips thought CDGIM037 “a wonderful issue and well worth buying” – see review – and John Quinn was just as enthusiastic about CDGIM038 – see review.  I concur with both. 

The Magnificats contain a number of striking discords, as do the works contained on this Hyperion recording.  The first part of the opening work, Tribulatio et angustia, is modelled on an earlier setting of this text, possibly by Pierre Verdelot.  Even in this first part Gombert goes beyond his model in expressing the tribulation and anguish of the psalmist but in the second part, where the text pleads for deliverance de lacu inferni et de luto fæcis, a plea echoed in the Requiem Mass, the voices at the top of their range are, as Stephen Rice’s excellent notes suggest, dragged down into the awful mire – the Latin text is tactfully rendered ‘fetid mud’ in the booklet but fæx (plural fæces) can mean shit as well as sediment. 

Not everything here is penitential – the second piece is a beautiful setting of Hortus conclusus es, the enclosed garden being a familiar image in courtly love poetry made applicable to the Virgin Mary by the addition of the words Dei genitrix, Mother of God.  If the Brabant Ensemble capture the awful descent to hell in the first piece, they equally present the soaring beauty of this second. 

The third piece returns us to the penitential mood, a setting of part of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, traditionally associated with Holy Week but here employed as settings of two antiphons for the Magnificat in November.  Though not strictly comparable with the Tallis Scholars’ Magnificat recordings mentioned above – the antiphons employed there are all in plainsong – the singing of the Brabant Ensemble is at least the equal of those excellent Gimell performances.  I deliberately set myself an impossible task when I mentioned those Gimell CDs, since an attempt at comparison becomes inevitable.  I could duck the issue by recommending purchase of both this Hyperion and one or both of the Gimell CDs – in fact, that would be good advice anyway – but I’m going to climb off the fence for once and give this Brabant Consort recording a very slight edge over the older CDs, largely because of the greater variety of the repertoire. 

That third track is the longest on the disc and the quality of the singing there sets the tone for the rest of the programme.  I’m not going to bore you with a long review: everything here is just right in terms of performance and recording.  A brief review from me always betokens high approval, since silence implies consent.  If you weren’t already persuaded by RH’s review into buying this CD, let me add my weight to his recommendation.  If this were a new recording, I’d make it my Recording of the Month. 

While you’re about it, don’t forget the recent Brabant Ensemble recording of Morales Magnificat primi toni and other pieces (CDA67694 - see review).  If you’ve got anything left over, don’t forget the Gimell CDs.  And don’t forget the Naxos CD of Gombert – I add my recommendation of this, too, to RH’s.  He didn’t give the number, so let me add it – (8.557732) and refer you to his review of this CD.  Then there’s an excellent budget-price recording of Gombert by Henry’s Eight on Hyperion Helios CDH55247, a Bargain of the Month – see review.  Credit squeeze or no, all these recordings are very worthy of your attention. 

Brian Wilson

see also Review by Robert Hugill

 




 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.