MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... 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


Antoine Busnois (c.1430-1492)
Missa L’homme armé (1460s ?) [31:32]
Anima mea liquefacta est  [5:42] 
Petrus de Domarto (fl.1450-1450)
Missa Spiritus almus
(c.1450) [28:08]

Antoine Busnois
Gaude celestis domina
[6:40] 

Jean Pullois (?-1478)
Flos de spina* [5:36] 

Robin Tyson (counter-tenor)*; The Binchois Consort/Andrew Kirkman
rec. All Saints, Tooting, London, 19-21 June 2001.  DDD.
Booklet with texts and translations included
HYPERION HELIOS CDH55288
[77:38]

 
Experience Classicsonline


First, my apologies for delay in reviewing this recording, which Gary Higginson reviewed as long ago as November, 2008.   I erroneously asked for a review copy of another Hyperion reissue which came out in the same month and only now have I been able to put the omission right.  As it happens, I’m glad that I mistakenly asked for CDH55312, Bach Cantatas 54, 169 and 170, sung by James Bowman with the King’s Consort, since I enjoyed hearing it – see my review – rather more than Jens Laurson who, though he was not unappreciative, thought this not the disc to convert those who dislike counter-tenors – see JL’s review.  If possible, however, I’m even more pleased now to review the Binchois Consort reissue.
 

I’m surprised to see this CD resurface so quickly, especially in view of the very positive reviews which it elicited at the time of its appearance and the fact that this was, and remains, the only available recording of Busnois’s remarkable Missa L’homme armé, a work which may have been the earliest appropriation of the L’homme armé theme - Josquin, whose two masses on this theme are the most famous, was a mere stripling when it was composed.  It was hugely influential and survives in more sources than any other setting of its time. 

Literary historians long decried the ‘long’ - and, by implication, boring - fifteenth century, thereby ignoring some very fine works.  How could C.S. Lewis, with his enthusiasm for the Courtly Love theme not enjoy James I’s Kingis Quair?.  There has never been a comparable prejudice among musical scholars but the general musical public still seems reluctant to dip its toe too far into these waters.  This very inexpensive reissue offers an ideal opportunity to do so and we must thank Hyperion for that.  No longer do we look only to Naxos for inexpensive good-quality recordings; in fact, some dealers regularly offer the Helios series for slightly less than Naxos. 

Naxos have a very successful and rightly praised account of one of Josquin des Pré’s L’homme armé  masses, the Missa sexti toni (8.553428, Oxford Camerata/Jeremy Summerly) and Gimell offer even more highly desirable versions of Missa L’homme armé super voces musicales and Missa L’homme armé sexti toni, coupled with two other mass settings, on CDGIM206 – The Tallis Scholars sing Josquin, a 2-for-1 offer which actually works out less expensive per disc than either Naxos or Helios.  I took the opportunity, while working on this review and on Gimell’s latest Josquin recording, to download the Gimell recording in CD-quality sound.  Gimell believe their new recording of the masses Malheur me bat and Fortuna desperata (CDGIM042) to be probably their best to date; I am inclined to concur, but with the proviso that their earlier recording of the two L’homme armé and other masses would be my first recommendation for anyone seeking to build a collection of early renaissance music. 

Hesitant readers need have no fear of the music on this CD.  If the music here is less distinctive than the two Josquin settings, it is, if anything, even more approachable, though some aspects of it may seem a little unfamiliar.  The painting which Hyperion have chosen for the cover, the Mass of Saint Giles, offers a clue – everything about it is representational, in the modern sense, of the high altar of the Abbey of S Denis, c.1500, obeying the rules of perspective, except the precious oriental carpet in the foreground.  So much does the artist want to represent the pattern of this in all its beauty that he tilts the perspective to give us a more complete view. 

The music of Busnois, Domarto and Pullois on this recording dates from almost half a century earlier than the painting but is comparable in the sense that if you are comfortable with the better-known polyphony of the sixteenth century – say, Tallis, Palestrina and Byrd – you will be almost as much at home with the music on this CD, with the very occasional exception.  To my ear those exceptions are as beautiful in their own right as the anonymous painter’s desire to show the right pattern of the carpet. 

In one important respect Busnois was ahead of the painter – whereas the latter remains anonymous, even if he is, as some have speculated, the sharp-eyed cleric holding back the altar curtain, Busnois seems to have been a man with a strong sense of his own personality.  Burckhardt, who invented the word and fashioned our modern concept of the renaissance, famously held that medieval human beings thought of themselves only in the context of their society and that the renaissance marked the transition to a self-image.  Modern scholarship would suggest that Burckhardt overstated his case, but its general tenor is still valid.  Andrew Kirkman in his admirable notes is surely right to suggest that Busnois had a strong sense of his own personality and that ‘his voice seems to shout out most powerfully’.  I need hardly add that Josquin, though still a transitional figure in some senses, was closer to our own time and, even more than Busnois, what Peter Phillips calls a superstar. 

I part company slightly from the notes when Kirkman suggests that Petrus de Domarto’s Missa Spiritus almus is significantly less individual and, to the modern ear, ‘a tougher nut to crack’.  I actually found it at least as approachable and, while not as individual as the Busnois, well worth hearing, as also is Pullois’s Flos de spina.  These two were not even names to me before I heard this CD – Domarto figures in the textbooks solely as the object of criticism from the theoretical writings of de Tinctoris – these recordings have whetted my appetite to hear more of their music. 

I can’t imagine better performances and the recording and presentation are equally up to Hyperion’s usual high standards – the latter in every respect the equal of the full-price original. 

If you look on the Hyperion web page, you’ll find an intriguing invitation, Please, someone, buy me ...   Clicking on the link takes you to an offer, half price or less, of their current poorest-selling CDs.  As I write, Volume 11 of the complete Purcell Anthems is offered for £4.90 and the Richard Strauss and Verdi String Quartets for £2.49; a few days ago I was amazed to find The Sixteen’s recording of Taverner’s Missa Corona Spinea on offer there for £2.49.  All these are well worth their usual price; they won’t be on offer when you read this – the list changes regularly – but something equally attractive probably will.  Give it a try. 

I was surprised to find the Taverner recording on the unloved list – I do urge you to buy it even at its regular, inexpensive price (CDH55051, a 5-star recording when we awarded stars – see Gerald Fenech’s review).  I shall be even more surprised if I ever see this Binchois Consort recording on the same list – if we were still awarding those stars, I’d give this five, too.  Otherwise, select your own words of praise from my earlier eulogies of Helios reissues.  If such a wonderful series had been available when I was an impecunious undergrad, I’d have been even more over the moon at the availability of such treasures than I am now.

Brian Wilson

see also Review by Gary Higginson


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos 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.