I don't think this is off topic at all! I'd love
to see all the responses on the list, too!
Right now I have 5 CDs in my player in my studio.
Two of them are Masaaki Suzuki's recording of
Bach's Johannes Passion, which was to be the
subject of my master's thesis if I'd ever
finished it. A third is four Bach Cantatas
dating from 1716-1718, when a young Bach was in
Weimar being a court religious composer and
organist. One of those is an early love of mine
called Himmelskonig, sie willkommen, with the
most beautiful joyous opening chorus.
Suzuki has the most incredibly fabulous counter
tenor alive at present - a small japanese man
named Yoshikazu Mera. A most incredibly flexible
and almost female voice. Beautiful dynamic
control, very hard for singing in falsetto, and
lovely ornaments, too.
The fourth CD is two masses by Tomas Luiz de
Victoria, each based on a motet which Victoria
also composed. The motet is sung and then the 5
sections of the ordinary of the mass, and then
the next motet followed by that mass. One can
hear the way the material in the motet influenced
the mass music. Victoria was a Spanish
renaissance composer who studied in Italy with
Palestrina. This recording features the
Westminster Cathedral Choir and the sound is very
full. The leader may have more than 4 voices to
a part, but the CD doesn't say. The sound is
what we think of as "very English". Not Dutch or
Italian at all, and certainly not as freewheeling
as the Spanish.
The final CD is of motets and frottele by Josquin
des Pres, the premier composer of the early
renaissance, a Fleming who went to Italy and
taught the next generation of Italian renaissance
composer. The performers, the Hilliard Ensemble,
have a lot of trouble with going flat, one can
even hear the moment when the basses drag the
counter-tenors down in the opening Ave maria,
Josquin's most famous motet. If I weren't in a
renaissance mood I'd probably put the CD back on
the shelf and go to Amazon and see if I could
find something more stable.
Christmas is coming and usually around then I
start listening to Bach's Christmas Oratorio and
sometimes his Orgelbüchlein, as well as sacred
harp singing and, very rarely I'll fall into a
New Agey sort of space. Christmas is a very
tough time for me, having no family.
--
Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@cape.com
508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races,
press photography http://www.vsu.cape.com/~elf
