BaL 7.05.11 - Recordings of Luis de Victoria's music

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Luis de Victoria Simon Heighes rounds up some of the available recordings of this Spanish master of the Golden Age in his 400th anniversary year.

As this is not a comparison of a particular work, there can be no meaningful list of available recordings. However this link may be helpful.

[DracoM]

Tomas Luis de Victoria: Tenebrae Responsories / Pro Cantione Antiqua; Requiem [ many - but worth a look back in time is St J's Cantab / Guest], Reproahces etc.

Many recordings, BUT to get the full plangency of the music, you really need a boy-led choir. BUT Andrew Parrott etc have done some excellent things. - reconstructing and in the singing. Pitch matters too.

That's for openers.

[StephenO]

I was surprised to find I have three CDs of Victoria's music - two form James O'Donnell and Westminster Cathedral Choir (Ave Maris Stella/O Quam Gloriosum and Missa Dum Complerentur) and the Paul McCreesh's recording of the Requiem with the Gabrieli Consort. I haven't listened to them for some long time so must put that right. Such sublime music.

[verismissimo]

I seem to have two LPs by Scuola Di Chiesa/Hoban from the late 1960s. Time for something new?

Victoria is one of those composers that I love, but rarely listen to in reality.

[doversoul1]

Here is The Tallis Scholars singing Victoria

http://www.thetallisscholars.co.uk/

and a CD: VICTORIA: Lamentations of Jeremiah (scroll down)

[DracoM]

Major decision for any collector is whether you want boy- or women-led choirs.

For me that decision changes the character of the music entirely. One suspects that the man wrote for the very particular timbre of boy voices - maybe in Rome castrati - which have 'breaks' or interest pivots which can be exploited for particular effects. Girls / women, particularly professional singers, learn tricks and have a more seamless range and therefore flatten out the contours IMO. They may sing the notes impeccably and with feeling, but I suspect that it just ain't what the man expected. Not always the best judge, I accept, and no doubt he might have seized the Andrew Parrott recordings with glee and clutched them to his bosom, but had he had such reousources at his disposal, IMO he would have subtly changed his writing style for them. He was a pro after all, writing for who / what forces were in front of him.

West Cath + O'Donnell or Baker have for me consistently just the right weight of sound in all parts and particularly in the boy-led top and the gravelly bass that gets closest in UK. Monserrat Escalonia are worth a listen but I find them generally too lugubrioius and slow to answer need.

[LeMartinPecheur]

This thread inspires me to dig out my old Argo LP of the Tenebrae Responses made by George Malcolm with the Westminster Cathedral choir. Immensely exciting, with amazing 'noises off'

Doesn't seem to be currently available though there are Marketplace copies at elevated prices on Amazon.

[ostuni]

Wonderful recording! I remember listening to it as a student, back in the 70s, and gradually switching the lights off...

[DracoM]

Check the tempi of the Malcolm: is it quick? Or............?
I'm listening to The Sixteen live now as I write and for me the way modern performances push the speeds, make the middle voices more aggressively assertive means we lose quitre a lot of the lilt and lift of his music.
Maybe I'm being old-fashioned.

[BBMmk2]

Perhaps not, DracoM. I quite agree with you there. I feel that sometiomes, especially in my field of music making, that with some pieces of music we play, especially for contests, the middle can sound lost. I have his setting of the requiem. I cant remeber of hand what recording it is by?

[doversoul1]

Major decision for any collector is whether you want boy- or women-led choirs.

For me that decision changes the character of the music entirely. One suspects that the man wrote for the very particular timbre of boy voices - maybe in Rome castrati - which have 'breaks' or interest pivots which can be exploited for particular effects. Girls / women, particularly professional singers, learn tricks and have a more seamless range and therefore flatten out the contours IMO. They may sing the notes impeccably and with feeling, but I suspect that it just ain't what the man expected. Not always the best judge, I accept, and no doubt he might have seized the Andrew Parrott recordings with glee and clutched them to his bosom, but had he had such reousources at his disposal, IMO he would have subtly changed his writing style for them. He was a pro after all, writing for who / what forces were in front of him.

West Cath + O'Donnell or Baker have for me consistently just the right weight of sound in all parts and particularly in the boy-led top and the gravelly bass that gets closest in UK. Monserrat Escalonia are worth a listen but I find them generally too lugubrioius and slow to answer need.

Well, SH kept us waiting. I nearly gave up after his playing of the Sixteen to the dozen (coat!). It was definitely worth waiting.

[Keraulophone]

Westminster Cathedral Choir and Victoria have long been a sublime combination.

Robert Philip presenting next week's BaL, and so soon after the effortlessly incisive RO - Hurrah for the Oldie BaL!

[DracoM]

By the way, I meant the David Hill [ NOT Andrew Parrott] Victoria recordings with West Cath, as well as the 2004 Martin Baker / West Cath Victoria Missa Ave Regina Coelorum plus 8 other Victoria motets on Hyperion - not mentioned by SH. And on the subject of de Lobo, the West Cath recording of Versa Est is probably the finest on CD - a heart-breaker.

[pilamenon]

The revelation for me was the countertenor of Carlos Mena and the vihuela of Juan Carlos Rivera on that Harmonia Mundi Et Jesum disc. A side of Victoria that was unfamiliar to me, and absolutely exquisite.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Harmonia%2BMundi/HMG507042

[BBMmk2]

The revelation for me was the countertenor of Carlos Mena and the vihuela of Juan Carlos Rivera on that Harmonia Mundi Et Jesum disc. A side of Victoria that was unfamiliar to me, and absolutely exquisite.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/H...undi/HMG507042

Oh yes! Was'nt it just! I don't think I have ever heard anything so!