At first glance this CD looks as though it should contain music
commemorating the death of the mighty Spanish monarch, Philip
II. But that’s really little more than a hook around which to
orientate the pieces chosen here: only three of the works were
specifically written to commemorate his death, and the others
have in some cases only a loose connection to Philip himself.
The disc’s real raison d’être is to showcase the reconstruction
of Escobedo’s Missa Philippus Rex Hispaniae. The only surviving
manuscript of the mass, written around the time of Philips’ accession
to the throne in 1559, is in very poor repair in the library of
the Sistine Chapel and it had been deemed indecipherable until
the 1998 commemorations for the four hundredth anniversary of
Philip’s death sparked scholars into action and a performing version
was made. The CD booklet contains a useful note by Anthony Fiumara
who produced the edition. So considering that this has connections
with Philips’ accession rather than his death, it’s not surprising
that it has the brightest mood of all the works on the disc. The
Gloria and Credo sections in particular soar to
radiant climaxes, and even the Benedictus and Agnus
Dei, which begin in minor keys, end up with optimistic endings.
Only
Cotes’ Mortuus
est Philippus Rex
and Lobo’s and Vivanco’s Versa est in luctum were expressly
written to comemmorate the monarch’s passing and they are
suitably large scale lamentations, the Cotes work showing
its sorrow through astonishing polyphony, while the Lobo grieves
quietly. Even
this, though, is trumped by the dark concentration of the
final work, Lobo’s Libera me, which has passages of
simple plainchant alternating with intensely moving harmonic
pleading. Don Fernando de las Infantas’ motet is a lively,
swinging motet written to commemorate the royal family’s visit
to San Jeronimo el Real in Madrid and it contains passages
of great virtuosity and devotional simplicity.
The
performances here could hardly be bettered. This music is helped
by using an ecclesiastical choir with boys rather than solely
adult males as it takes us closer to the circumstances of each
work’s premiere. The recording is helped by the way that O’Donnell
seems to make the choir sound as un-English as possible: the control
of the melismas and the element of distance to the voices makes
the overall sound more ethereal and spiritual than, say, the sound
cultivated by the Oxbridge choirs. The acoustic of the location
is interesting too: the lack of a cavernous echo makes me doubt
that it was recorded in Westminster Cathedral itself, and consequently
the sound is closer to the ear but simultaneously deprived of
locational specificity. For me it worked very well, giving the
best of the ecclesiastical tradition while making it at the same
time universal. The control of the long arches of sound is flawless
and tuning is spot-on throughout, not always easy when every number
is sung unaccompanied.
Simon Thompson
see also Review
by Brian Wilson
