Philippe Herreweghe, in the accompanying booklet to this recording invites the listener to imagine the music ''resounding beneath the vaults of an abbey, before dawn, sung by musicians involved to the very depths of their beings for whom the triduum [the three days before Easter Day] had a real and painful meaning''. Although Harmonia Mundi do not reveal where this recording was made, there is sufficient resonance to suggest a vaulted acoustic, and Herreweghe's choir (of 13 mixed voices) certainly sound involved in the music, though I very much doubt the sessions took place before sunrise. The overall effect of the recording, however, is one of the muted passion of intense contemplation, as would have befitted the solemn liturgical celebrations held during Holy Week in the composer's own day.
Lassus's settings of the Lamentations conform to the well-established traditions of the late sixteenth century, though his choice of texts is no less individual and, presumably, personal than that of his contemporaries Victoria or Palestrina. The bulk of the text is set more or less syllabically (the stress of the words thus influencing the rhythmic shape of the melodic phrases), with the Hebrew letters (Aleph, Beth, etc.) at the heart of the origins of the Lamentations of Jeremiah set as extended melismas, usually based on falling or rising scalic figures, each building to a climax but each, with this simple unity of thematic material, contributing to a cumulative structural effect. The Chapelle Royale distinguish well between the two styles, bringing a slower, more sustained intensity to the waxing and waning of the melismatic passages and a good sense of unhurried flow to the texted sections. These are urgent, without ever being pressed too hard. The balance of the choir is excellent, resulting in a vibrancy of sound in these essentially chordal textures that enhances the harmonic progressions and shapes the dissonances that make this music so affecting. Apart from the odd very slightly tentative entry, their ensemble and assurance with the idiom is equal to that of the best British mixed choirs—more proof that on the continent standards of choral singing are steadily but surely improving. Yes, the music, as Herreweghe suggests, is austere, but it has its own almost mesmeric beauty when sung with as much refinement and sensitivity as here. Highly recommended.'