Victoria: Requiem 1605 'Officium defunctorum'

“a CD of such beauty that it needs to be heard by every lover of Renaissance choral music. The music itself is stunning...Herreweghe’s 13 singers do it justice with performances that strike a perfect balance between lusciousness and clarity, expression and nobility.” The Times, 18th August 2012 *****

“The [Requiem]'s dramatic potential is not overtly exploited but rather suggested, such is the concentrated, cut-glass quality of the singing at its best...Fine as this account of the Requiem undoubtedly is, the series of accompanying motets contains some of the disc's finest singing.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2012

“The 13 voices are as finely balanced and harmonious as you could wish, and throughout the recording there is immaculate tuning and exceptional attention to detail. The sense of architecture in the motet Versa est in luctum, for example, is wonderfully judged” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2012 ****

“Herreweghe explores evey inflection of Victoria's score, includingt its restrained drama and grief transfigured by faith. The plainchant passages are sung with exceptional fluency and grace...The singers' diction is strikingly clear without seeming exaggerated...[Herreweghe] and his choir obviously understand each other and Victoria's music at the deepest level. A masterly recording in every way.” International Record Review, December 2012

“Tenebrae here exquisitely conveys the the flowing relationships between its six voices...The group presents the work with elegant subtlety, allowing the full detail of tonal colouration to shine through unencumbered. The abnegation of wordly misery in lines such as "My soul is weary of my life" is echoed in the less well-known but equally absorbing "Versa est in luctum"” The Independent, 15th April 2011 *****

“here is music of essential simplicity and spiritual depth. Tenebrae’s performance, directed by Nigel Short, is gently sustained, immaculately balanced and wrapped in a luminous acoustic...If you have ever developed a resistance to Renaissance polyphony, this could be the disc to make you think again.” Financial Times, 30th April 2011 *****

“Short finds a musical dramaturgy to match that of the text. The Requiem is written for six voices, but this choir of 20 never seems lumbering or unbalanced. They are perfectly tuned (listen to the exquisite poise of the Agnus Dei), and one is rarely aware of intrusive individual singers. The acoustic has a long echo, but the sound is kept nicely in focus. This recording does justice both to the genius of Victoria and to the musicality of Tenebrae.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2011 *****

“Tenebrae applies its customary sensibility and expressive power to one of the great cornerstones of the choral repertoire. Beautifully recorded with just the right amount of resonance...Victoria called on all his imaginative resources in this Requiem, and Tenebrae interprets them magnificently.” The Telegraph, 19th May 2011 *****

“[the Lobo settings] allow Tenebrae to demonstrate the full range of their fingertip coloristic precision and ease at negotiating tricky chromatic relationships...Tenebrae avoid the emotional hard-sell by stressing lines for dramatic effect, and let the sounds themselves do the work. This is a definitive modern Victoria Requiem, performed by a choir who relish its musical and expressive challenges.” Classic FM Magazine, July 2011 *****

“This new recording by Tenebrae...recalls the wonderful 1987 recording by the Tallis Scholars in its luminous clarity and firm architectonics...Immediately apparent are the modulations of feeling directly registered in the undulating phrases, something that characterizes this performance as a whole.” International Record Review, July 2011

“This goes to the head of the list of some fine versions of this Requiem” Fanfare

“Glorious. A rich, luminous acoustic halo seems to surround the music as it soars ever upward. Under David Hill’s expert direction this choir has achieved a depth and body of tone totally appropriate to this fullblooded Iberian music” Good CD Guide

“Harry Christophers imbues this account with maturity and assurance as well as a deep understanding of the music's architecture. He inspires some impassioned singing from the choir - plumbing the depths in the Offertory to depict the 'deep pit' and 'the pains of hell', and elsewhere using a range of rhetorical gestures to heighten intensity.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2005 *****

“…The Sixteen's new offering… builds on their previous recordings by complementing the voices with a chamber organ and the wonderfully robust-sounding bajón, an early Spanish bassoon whose use in polyphonic performances of the period is well documented.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2005

“This is a remarkable recording. In some ways it's like a rediscovery, for here's an approach not too far from Pro Cantione Antiqua at its best and yet that group never recorded the work. The Gabrieli Consort adds chant to the Requiem Mass itself, thus creating more of a context for Victoria's magisterial work.
We have therefore the Epistle and preceding prayer, the Tract, Sequence, Gospel, Preface, Lord's Prayer and Postcommunion in addition to the polyphony; this also means, for example, that the Kyrie is sung nine-fold with alternating chant instead of simply three-fold only in polyphony.
We can presume that the chant was taken from a suitable Spanish source by Luis Lozano Virumbrales, who's an expert in this field and the author of the insert-notes together with Paul McCreesh.
The performance itself is stately and imposing, with a tremendous homogeneity of sound: the use of an all-male choir, together with the added chant, lends it a tangibly monastic feel, though it would have been a fortunate monastery indeed that had falsettists of this quality. About the performance of the chant there are two points of interest: first, that it's doubled, like the polyphony, by a shawm, common Spanish practice at this period, and second, that McCreesh isn't afraid to have the falsettists singing the chant too.
The pace of the polyphony often seems unhurried, but never feels slow, and Westminster Cathedral Choir is faced with the hugely reverberant acoustics of its home building. From the beginning the singing is involving and incarnate, but the real magic comes nearer the end: from the Agnus Dei onwards one feels that the Gabrieli Consort have really got the measure of the music and is allowing it to speak through them. The final great responsory, the 'Libera me', is performed with heart stopping power and conviction.
McCreesh's approach shows how the Mass would have fitted into and complemented the liturgical framework without ever losing its own internal power and drama. A revelatory disc.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

'Glorious. A rich, luminous acoustic halo seems to surround the music as it soars ever upward. Under David Hill's expert direction this choir has achieved a depth and body of tone totally appropriate to this full-blooded Iberian music' (The Good CD Guide)