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Track(s) taken from CDA68337

O decus ecclesiae

composer
5vv
author of text

Cinquecento
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
Recording details: January 2020
Kartause Mauerbach, Vienna, Austria
Produced by Adrian Peacock
Engineered by Markus Wallner
Release date: June 2021
Total duration: 12 minutes 13 seconds

Cover artwork: Christ's Arrest (c1512) by Albrecht Altdorfer (c1480-1538)
akg-images / Erich Lessing
 

Reviews

‘Throughout this album Cinquecento are at the top of their game. Stylistically speaking, I would suggest similarities with The Hilliard Ensemble; the rich meld of lower voices creates a stable core to their performances and the subtle individuality of their voices allows for polyphonic details to be heard clearly at all times. Their countertenor, Terry Wey, is superb throughout, bringing a graceful ease to the top line. They have chosen to record in a generous acoustic which, despite warming their sound, does not obscure any of the finer details. The Mass is particularly attention-grabbing since it comprises many sections for three or four voices which are so skilfully managed that the full six-voice textures, when they occur, feel like a warm embrace. What I admire most from Cinquecento, though, is their sense of polyphonic momentum and on this album in particular they find a perfect balance of long-range phrasing with surface detail. The result is a sonically beautiful performance that holds my attention’ (Gramophone)

‘The six pan-European singers of Cinquecento spin Isaac's lines with real beauty and subtlety of phrasing, bringing a lustrous glow to the polyphony … the recording places them perfectly in the acoustic as well. Timeless polyphony’ (BBC Record Review)» More

‘Cinquecento make an incredibly persuasive case for this repertoire … the singing is first-rate … the ensemble is fantastic and as you go from the Josquin into the Isaac it’s like walking from a baptistery into an amazing Gothic nave—the sunlight pours in. It’s a wonderful, wonderful disc … such a joy’ (BBC Record Review)» More

‘Cinquecento’s best recording since Palestrina’s second book of Lamentations (Hyperion CDA68284) and one cannot praise it more highly than that … admirers of Cinquecento will find themselves rewarded as never before by this recording. Admirers of Isaac who do not know this music, especially the mass, will find their admiration confirmed and perhaps even expanded. Explorers unacquainted with Isaac will discover a new musical territory replete with riches’ (Early Music Review)» More

‘The ideal introduction to Isaac’s music. Not only is the Wohlauff Mass one of his most imposing and sonically splendid settings, as David J Burn notes in the booklet—itself well up to Hyperion’s high standards—the shorter works also add to the value of this very welcome release. As for the performances, I need add little to the praise of Cinquecento—see Dominy Clements’ review of their Palestrina [CDA68284]—while the recording, which I downloaded in 24/96 format, is equally first-rate’ (MusicWeb International)

‘Cinquecento is a group of six men who have been mostly devoting themselves for a number of years to rare Renaissance repertoire. Isaac has often been recorded in recent times but this, his longest and most demanding mass, is, I believe, heard here for the first time … [Sive vivamus] is a short motet but one I have returned to a few times. It begins homophonically and then falls into delicious rolling counterpoint … Parce, Domine, populo tuo is a simple, short and beautiful motet in four parts … [Judaea et Jerusalem] makes a wonderful ending to the disc … the booklet is up to Hyperion’s normal excellent standard with all texts given in clear translations. The recording is rather close but there is a sense of the lovely seventeenth century Charterhouse complex in which the group was luckily enough to able to record’ (MusicWeb International)» More

‘A really rather overwhelming experience. Each line is given clarity by the single voice to a part Cinquecento, but the blending of sonorities in the whole make for wonderful listening, with waves of collective voices and the emergence and receding of individual lines creating something truly glorious … such illumination would not be possible without the superb voices of Cinquecento, and Hyperion’s excellent recording, which is perfectly balanced in a spacious acoustic, but close enough for that all-important clarity of diction and line to be communicated without any need to strain the senses’ (MusicWeb International)» More
In Florence, Isaac was one of the ‘Singers of San Giovanni’, who sang at services at the city’s principal religious institutions. Despite an official church appointment, however, Isaac’s activities extended well beyond the purely liturgical. The Medici used the Singers of San Giovanni for their private musical needs as well as for civic representation, and Isaac’s output proves that he was involved in both of these.

O decus ecclesiae combines various components of this nexus. Conceived on an extraordinary scale, the piece shows Isaac at his grandest. It draws its structure from one of Renaissance music’s basic building blocks: the six-note scale fragment known as the natural hexachord (the notes C, D, E, F, G and A). In each of the motet’s two sections, the tenor part systematically assembles and dismantles the hexachord one note at a time, beginning with its lowest pitch. A pedagogical aim cannot be ruled out, though a symbolic one seems more likely. Four additional voices surround this scaffold with a text that praises the Virgin Mary with classicizing imagery, reflecting the world of Renaissance Florentine humanism.

from notes by David J Burn © 2021

À Florence, Isaac fut l’un des «Chanteurs de San Giovanni», qui se produisaient aux offices dans les principales institutions religieuses de la ville. Toutefois, malgré un poste religieux officiel, les activités d’Isaac dépassèrent largement le cadre purement liturgique. Les Médicis utilisaient les Chanteurs de San Giovanni pour leurs besoins musicaux personnels comme pour la représentation municipale, et les œuvres d’Isaac prouvent qu’il était impliqué dans les deux.

O decus ecclesiae combine diverses composantes de cette connexion. Conçue à une échelle extraordinaire, cette pièce montre Isaac le plus grandiose. Elle tire sa structure de l’un des éléments fondamentaux de la musique de la Renaissance: le fragment de gamme de six notes connu sous l’appellation d’hexacorde naturel (les notes do, ré, mi, fa, sol et la). Dans chacune des deux sections du motet, la partie de ténor assemble et démantèle systématiquement note après note l’hexacorde, en commençant par la plus grave. Il est impossible d’écarter tout objectif pédagogique, mais un but symbolique semble plus probable. Quatre voix supplémentaires entourent cet échafaudage sur un texte qui chante les louanges de la Vierge Marie avec une imagerie classicisante, reflétant l’univers de l’humanisme de la Renaissance florentine.

extrait des notes rédigées par David J Burn © 2021
Français: Marie-Stella Pâris

Isaac diente in Florenz als einer der „Sänger von San Giovanni“, die in Messen in den wichtigsten geistlichen Einrichtungen der Stadt auftraten. Obwohl er damit offiziell im Dienst der Kirche stand, ging seine Tätigkeit weit über den rein liturgischen Rahmen hinaus. Die Medici nutzten die Sänger von San Giovanni sowohl für ihre Privatmusik als auch für städtische Repräsentation. Isaacs Schaffen belegt, dass er auch auf diesen Gebieten aktiv war.

In O decus ecclesiae versammeln sich mehrere Aspekte dieser nach mehreren Seiten gerichteten Tätigkeit. Die Dimensionen des Stücks sind außergewöhnlich; es zeigt Isaacs Schaffen von seiner monumentalsten Seite. Den Aufbau bestimmt einer der Grundbausteine der Renaissancemusik: das sogenannte natürliche Hexachord, die Tonfolge C–D–E–F–G–A. In beiden Teilen der Motette baut der Tenor vom tiefsten Ton aus das Hexachord Note für Note auf und wieder ab. Eine pädagogische Absicht ist nicht auszuschließen, wahrscheinlicher aber ist ein symbolischer Gehalt. Vier Stimmen umgeben dieses Grundgerüst, ihr Text preist die Jungfrau Maria in antikisierenden Bildern, ein Zeugnis des Humanismus der florentinischen Renaissance.

aus dem Begleittext von David J Burn © 2021
Deutsch: Friedrich Sprondel

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