SACDs - Benevoli

Alessandro Striggio’s 40 and 60-part 'Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno' is the starting point for Hervé Niquet's polyphonic programme of Florentine flamboyance - which will be touring in 2012 -on Glossa. He cites the musical celebrations for a feast day occasion in the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence in honour of St John the Baptist, adding a trio of works by Orazio Benevoli, another specialist in multi-parted choral works, and Striggio’s motet 'Ecce beatem lucem', also scored for 40 voices. Niquet has included polyphonic arrangements of Gregorian plainchant Mass Propers by Franceso Corteccia, maestro di cappella in the Cathedral of Florence in Striggio’s time.

The recording was made in Notre-Dame du Liban in Paris, using an edition of the Mass by Dominique Visse, originating in 1978. Niquet gathered 60 singers (as called for in the Agnus Dei) plus instrumentalists from Le Concert Spirituel around him in a circle (conductor and microphones inside) for this new SACD surround-sound experience from Glossa. It calls on all the ceremonial pomp and flair which these masterful musicians have been demonstrating over the years, in concert and on disc. And who better than the famous French countertenor Visse himself to be drawn into that circle as one of the 60 singers!

By 1500, Rome had surpassed Florence as the artistic capital of Italy. The composers whose works you will hear on this hybrid SACD disc were those who brought the art of music to its finest levels in the high Renaissance, and who were foremost in the Counter-Reformation's artistic response to Protestant asceticism. The sources for all the music on this recording, whether published or unpublished manuscripts, are Roman. The Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal (SMAM), a group of 13 to 18 professional singers, is accompanied here by cello, organ, and theorbo. While specializing in Renaissance and Baroque music, SMAM is also known for performances of contemporary music. Christopher Jackson co-founded SMAM in 1974, and has been its artistic director since 1988. A noted organist and harpsichordist, he has been a leader in Montreal's early music scene for more than 30 years.