Document

  1992
    December 1992
        Choral and Song
                Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli. Missa Aeterna Christi munera.

Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli. Missa Aeterna Christi munera. Oxford Camerata / Jeremy Summerly.

Naxos Early Music (Super budget price) (CD) 8 550573 (56 minutes: DDD).

Right from the first Kyrie of the Missa Papae Marcelli Jeremy Summerly shows that he is a conductor with clear and personal opinions. He hears the Kyrie not as three panels but as a single flow that leads to a climax at the end of the movement. He never lingers over the double-bars in the music, though he is happy to linger elsewhere when the music seems to demand it; and the results are very impressive. This is not the mystical fan-vaulted Palestrina that the rich textures of this Mass often seem to invite but something more direct, a true Counter-Reformation statement of time-worn truths that are still valid.

He has a choir with (lowish) sopranos and tenors but no altos—or at least that's the way it sounds. So his excellent top tenors, high in their register, tend to dominate the texture; and this too gives the choir a lively and springy texture drawing the listener's attention to the inner voices which are after all the essence of the polyphony. Since there are only 12 singers, the six-voice Missa Papae Marcelli has only two to a part, something which happens to be extremely difficult for tuning; so there are the occasional rough spots here, though not at all in the four-voice Missa Aeterna Christi munera. Still, the singers are constantly alive and their sound is always vibrantly exciting. Moreover Summerly controls them well, with what seems unfailing musical judgement.

Summerly and his choir are new to the catalogue (though there are some familiar names in there); and they deserve watching carefully. If they can retain the sense of life and the cool musicianship of this record they will do very well. Also new is the Naxos label's budget-price Early Music series, here presenting music of known quality (indeed some of the best the sixteenth century has to offer) with concise notes that tell you everything you need to know but no more.

DF



		Right from the first Kyrie of the Missa Papae Marcelli Jeremy Summerly shows that he is a conductor with clear and personal opinions. He hears the Kyrie not as three panels but as a single flow that leads to a climax at the end of the movement. He never lingers over the double-bars in the music, though he is happy to linger elsewhere when the music seems to demand it; and the results are very impressive. This is not the mystical fan-vaulted Palestrina that the rich textures of this Mass often seem to invite but something more direct, a true Counter-Reformation statement of time-worn truths that are still valid.



		He has a choir with (lowish) sopranos and tenors but no altos—or at least that's the way it sounds. So his excellent top tenors, high in their register, tend to dominate the texture; and this too gives the choir a lively and springy texture drawing the listener's attention to the inner voices which are after all the essence of the polyphony. Since there are only 12 singers, the six-voice Missa Papae Marcelli has only two to a part, something which happens to be extremely difficult for tuning; so there are the occasional rough spots here, though not at all in the four-voice Missa Aeterna Christi munera. Still, the singers are constantly alive and their sound is always vibrantly exciting. Moreover Summerly controls them well, with what seems unfailing musical judgement.



		Summerly and his choir are new to the catalogue (though there are some familiar names in there); and they deserve watching carefully. If they can retain the sense of life and the cool musicianship of this record they will do very well. Also new is the Naxos label's budget-price Early Music series, here presenting music of known quality (indeed some of the best the sixteenth century has to offer) with concise notes that tell you everything you need to know but no more.