Document

  1996
    March 1996
        Choral and song
                Portuguese Polyphony

Portuguese Polyphony Ars Nova / Bo Holten.

Naxos (Super budget price) (CD) 8 553310 (63 minutes: DDD). Texts and translations included.

Cardoso: Lamentatio. Magnificat secundi toni. Lobo: Audivi vocem da caelo. Pater peccavi. Magalhaes: Vidi acquam. Missa O soberana luz. Commissa mea pavesco. Fonseca: Beata viscera. Trosylho: Circumdederunt me. Escobar: Clamabat autem mulier.

Cardoso, Lamentatio – selected comparison:

Westminster Cath Ch, O’Donnell (HYPE) CDA66512

Cardoso, Magnificat – selected comparison:

The Tallis Scholars, Phillips (10/90) (GIME) CDGIM021

Lobo, Audivi – selected comparison:

William Byrd Ch, Turner (HYPE) CDA66218

Lobo, Audivi/Pater peccavi – selected comparison:

The Sixteen, Christophers (8/94) (COLL) 1407-2

Magalhaes, Mass – selected comparison:

A Capella Portuguesa, Rees (11/94) (HYPE) CDA66725

Ars Nova have recorded an enterprising selection of music, very well suited to their rich, full sound. A noteworthy feature of this choir is their superb balance: the sound is never top-heavy, and the consequent equilibrium between all the voice parts is frequently quite a revelation in polyphonic writing. There is also sometimes a certain hard edge to the sound, which I for one enjoy. It is certainly quite a different sound from most other choirs, whether British or continental.

Perhaps the most impressive performances are the thoughtful and moving accounts of Duarte Lobo’s pair of funeral motets, Audivi vocem and Pater peccavi, the choir’s sustained and beautiful tone bringing out the harmonic logic of the two pieces to perfection (losing nothing to either the William Byrd Choir or The Sixteen). The idiosyncratic Magalhaes Mass is also superlatively sung, Ars Nova seeming to enjoy the abrupt textural contrasts in the work somewhat more than does the rather blander reading by A Capella Portuguesa. In many ways, however, the most valuable items on the disc are the three works by earlier composers. The Escobar motet is reasonably well known, but the works by Trosylho and Fonseca are very rarely performed, and both are of high quality, at times almost suggesting the style of Morales.

Bo Holten is also not afraid to risk quite slow speeds: Cardoso’s Magnificat here lasts one-and-a-half minutes longer than The Tallis Scholars’ recording, for example, and the Lamentatio is nearly a minute longer than that of Westminster Cathedral. This is the slowest of the three recordings of Lobo’s Audivi vocem, too. The leisurely pace never affects the singers’ capacity for sustaining the melodic lines, however; quite the contrary – they seem to gain extra impetus from such intense, meditative concentration. A challenging and well-conceived collection indeed.

IWGM



		Ars Nova have recorded an enterprising selection of music, very well suited to their rich, full sound. A noteworthy feature of this choir is their superb balance: the sound is never top-heavy, and the consequent equilibrium between all the voice parts is frequently quite a revelation in polyphonic writing. There is also sometimes a certain hard edge to the sound, which I for one enjoy. It is certainly quite a different sound from most other choirs, whether British or continental.



		Perhaps the most impressive performances are the thoughtful and moving accounts of Duarte Lobo’s pair of funeral motets, Audivi vocem and Pater peccavi, the choir’s sustained and beautiful tone bringing out the harmonic logic of the two pieces to perfection (losing nothing to either the William Byrd Choir or The Sixteen). The idiosyncratic Magalhaes Mass is also superlatively sung, Ars Nova seeming to enjoy the abrupt textural contrasts in the work somewhat more than does the rather blander reading by A Capella Portuguesa. In many ways, however, the most valuable items on the disc are the three works by earlier composers. The Escobar motet is reasonably well known, but the works by Trosylho and Fonseca are very rarely performed, and both are of high quality, at times almost suggesting the style of Morales.



		Bo Holten is also not afraid to risk quite slow speeds: Cardoso’s Magnificat here lasts one-and-a-half minutes longer than The Tallis Scholars’ recording, for example, and the Lamentatio is nearly a minute longer than that of Westminster Cathedral. This is the slowest of the three recordings of Lobo’s Audivi vocem, too. The leisurely pace never affects the singers’ capacity for sustaining the melodic lines, however; quite the contrary – they seem to gain extra impetus from such intense, meditative concentration. A challenging and well-conceived collection indeed.