| Site review by Geohominid May 6, 2008
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Performance: Sonics (S/MC): / |
The Westminster Cathedral Choir is apparently the only professional Catholic choir in the world to sing daily Mass and Vespers, so their musicianship is grounded in worship as well as the professional training which they receive from their music director. Martin Baker, the present incumbent, continues to develop their distinctive sound, which is continental, full-throated and vibrant. Victoria's robust and emotional polychoral music suits the choir very well, as we can hear in this compilation of the composer's Marian pieces. The main feature is the Mass Ave Regina Coelorum, prefaced by the motet of the same name which supplied themes for elaboration in the Mass.
Victoria's Ave Regina Caelorum motet is for double SATB choirs. These are well-separated in the resonant acoustic of Westminster Cathedral but are given immediacy by the engineers, so that melodic lines and the generally good textual articulation register clearly. This is celebratory music, taken at a good tempo, and the bright sound of the boy trebles answering one another across the sound stage is quite frisson-making. At first, Victoria emulates the Venetian style of tossing motives from choir to choir, but in the central section all the voices are brought together for a superbly joyous cry of 'Gaudete, Gloriosa' (Rejoice, O Glorious One).
A double choir format is also used for the Proper of the Mass. Again, the sections are kept moving by Baker, and Victoria manages to provide colourful music appropriate to the texts (which incidentally are very audible). There are effective changes in pace, metre and dynamics, and the singers are superbly disciplined in their responses. A vigorous dance-like style characterises the Credo, for example, with fervent antiphonal statements and responses. The boy trebles sound angelic and ethereal in the central meditative Et incarnatus and Et Homo sections; with such intimacy that one might be in the Royal Chapel of the Escorial itself.
The Sanctus brings long-breathed flowing melismas intertwined between the two choirs, with strong tenor parts emerging from the trebles in descant, a most beautifully conceived and executed texture. Hosannas come in great gusts of sound which reverberate around the cathedral. For the Agnus dei, boys in the right-hand choir begin with a ravishingly phrased flowing melody which is taken up and elaborated by the left-hand choir to reach a sumptuous climax, a most fitting end to the Mass.
Victoria's resources for ear-catching textural colours to express the biblical texts seem almost endless, and are found abundantly in the remaining motets and psalms on this disc. We move from Dixit Dominus with its two equal SATB choirs to Laudate pueri, which has a high-voiced SSAT against an SATB choir to thrilling effect, the boy's tessitura gleaming against a deeper, darker sonority. Laetatus sum brings even more brilliant vocal orchestration; with three choirs - two SATB and a third SSABar, leavened with solo work from the trebles and baritone.
All in all, a sumptuous feast of the Spanish master's polychoral works, fervently and convincingly sung. The Hyperion engineers set a high standard for capturing details of the vocal parts and their spatial separation. We are placed in ideal seats within the sort of atmospheric acoustic for which this music was written, and given an uplifting and thrilling experience, particularly in realistically enveloping surround sound.
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Copyright © 2008 John Miller and SA-CD.net
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