Hyperion Records

Padilla is at his best in this piece. He uses all the techniques of contrasted textures and voice groupings; he writes homophonic and antiphonal declamation, then with reduced parts he weaves a dangerously inflected polyphony to emphasize the groaning and weeping in the vale of tears. At ‘gementes’ he gets into a strange state of harmonic instability that cannot be edited away.

from notes by Bruno Turner © 2009