Linn label - CDs

“So much first-rate 16th-century music still remains unrecorded, but here's a welcome addition.
Philippe Rogier's death at the age of 35 in 1596 cut short a prolific stream of music. Worse was to come. In 1734 a fire destroyed the library of the Spanish royal chapel, which must have held a large number of his compositions (at the time of his death he was chief court musician to Philip II).
How large a number can be gauged from the terrible earthquake that struck Lisbon in 1755, swallowing up the royal library along with 243 works.
Today we're left with only 51, of which the present recital represents a sizeable proportion.
Rogier's music has Palestrina's imposing solidity and classical feel, but is more florid and freer in its use of dissonance. In this sense it looks forward to later Iberian music of the 17th century, achieving a sustained intensity in the motets. The Mass is a consummate demonstration, the skilful working out of a motet by Gombert, whose influence is very audible. The booklet-note rightly points out how Rogier develops his model in very different directions: the sequences that conclude most movements are persuasively managed, but sound utterly unlike Gombert.
Rogier's Mass Domine Dominus noster appears in a fine recording on Ricercar. But Magnificat's interpretation is of a different order. This is singing in the English tradition, but with greater warmth and richness than we're used to from mixed choirs of this kind. Given Rogier's predilection for fully scored writing, that richness pays dividends, as does the relatively large cast of 18 singers. Interpretation and music are well matched in more ways than one. Neither are strikingly original, but both make a striking impression.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“John Toll succumbed to cancer in his early fifties, thus depriving the world of a supreme continuo player, in many ways unchallenged in his generation. This disc's quality deepens the sense of loss. The choice of Gibbons is itself intriguing for a man whose main career was in Baroque music. But it's clear from every note that this was a composer very close to Toll's heart, that he acknowledged the quiet poet who has perhaps the most distinctive voice of all composers from the age of Shakespeare.
Toll has focused on the most substantial works. All the Fantasias are here, as well as most of the Pavans; but most of the smaller dances are omitted. So we have a Gibbons of considerable seriousness, which Toll underlines by controlled playing that has not the slightest trace of self-indulgence. What we hear in Toll is the composer who was not just the 'best finger of that age' but also one of the finest contrapuntists and a man of marvellous musical imagination.
The music is divided between two instruments.
The late 17th-century organ at Adlington Hall sounds absolutely glorious, beautifully caught by the engineers, and played with sympathetic mastery; it's used not just for Fantasias but also for some of the music that one would more instinctively have thought intended for a harpsichord – with fascinating results. A modern Flemish-style harpsichord by Michael Johnson serves for the rest, but again not just for the dances. This is top-quality playing.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“It's a nice idea for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to record a disc of such varied Vivaldian fare. The young women of the orchestra which Vivaldi directed at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice were as renowned for the range of instruments they could wield as for their virtuosity; so it seems neatly apposite that the OAE, so full of capable soloists itself, should use this music to celebrate its members' own star qualities. And the mixture is a wide one:three solo concertos; a rare Concerto for two horns; the deservedly popular Concerto for lute and viola d'amore, two concertos for typically extravagant Vivaldian multiple lineups; and one of those chamber concertos in which all the players are soloists. The OAE play with great expertise and good taste throughout. Judging by the list in the booklet, they use a relatively large body of strings, but, although this is noticeable, there's no feeling of heaviness, and indeed the use of two double basses gives the sound a substantial foundation which is at the same time deliciously light on its feet. There's a total of 16 soloists listed: among the highlights are David Watkin's habitually assured and intensely musical playing of the Cello Concerto; Lisa Beznosiuk, sensitive as ever in La notte (though struggling a bit against the string sound); Andrew Clark and Roger Montgomery, treading securely and confidently through the Concerto for two horns; Anthony Robson, a little under the note sometimes but showing good breath control and phrasing in the Oboe Concerto; and a fairylight performance of the Concerto for lute and viola d'amore from Elizabeth Kenny and Catherine Mackintosh.
The performances are all directorless, and there was the odd place where a guiding hand might have pepped things up (or stopped the theorbo from twiddling so much in the slow movement of the Cello Concerto), but in general this is a relaxed and convivial Vivaldi programme that one can simply sit back and enjoy.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010