JOSQUIN Miserere mei Deus
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Magazine Review Date: 11/2018
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 66
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: HMM90 2620
Author: Fabrice Fitch
Cappella Amsterdam are a mixed choir singing roughly two to a part. Their sound is situated midway between their Flemish and English counterparts, and their performance style is on the cool side, though never forbidding or overly objectified. They are at their best when textures are clear and the musical discourse is most legible, as in Planxit autem David. In busier textures I might wish for more positive shaping of individual phrases, although in Nimphes nappés (perhaps the densest piece of all) the decision to go one to-a-part and without sopranos pays dividends, and Gombert’s motet is a fitting epilogue. Whether Josquin wrote Absalon, fili mi is still disputed but the programme plainly justifies its inclusion. Despite its focus on only one textual area (the lament), this seems to me an admirable introduction to the motet repertory as a whole.
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