Mixed result of authenticity
Mr. I. M. Davis | London, UK | 07/06/2005
(3 out of 5 stars)
"... I have my reservations over this recording, mostly on balance and acoustics. Parrot's choice of comparatively large chorus topped with trebles in a resonant location may have appeared the obvious choice on paper but in practice the result is not without difficulty: the trebles have occasional difficulty with Biber's demanding high lines, the ensemble lacks some clarity in places, and it is presumably the acoustic and size of forces that have ensured a sometimes overly steady tempo.
Having heard Andrew Manze conducting the English Concert (using smaller and more agile forces), I suggest that a comparison between this and Manze's forthcoming CD (sadly not using surround recording technology) is made before purchasing. Choice is always a good thing, and to have such different approaches almost side-by-side means you can find which works best for you."
Great CD - made even better with surround sound
littlecatland | MA | 09/15/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is a great CD. I've only had it a little while and I've already listened to it more than a dozen times. The singers are tight, and the music is moving.
Another reviewer quibbled about the size of the chorus - suggesting he preferred a smaller one - but I can't disagree more - the chorus is magnificent and has all the power and subtlety this music requires.
The SACD surround sound is a nice feature too. This is a wonderful listen when I'm jogging with my Walkman on - but it is an absolute SHOWSTOPPER on the home stereo system."
New York Collegium Shines in First Recording of Music from 1
D. R. Endicott | New York, NY | 06/22/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The New York Collegium's recording of Heinrich Biber's Missa Christi Resurgentis is the first-ever recording of this renowned composer's little-known Easter Day Mass, and features the celebrated singers and period-instrument players of the Manhattan-based New York Collegium. Conceived and directed by Andrew Parrott, who has served as Music Director of The New York Collegium since 2002, the disc was recorded with the latest surround sound technology and produced in the new HSACD format. Mr. Parrott is widely recognized as a cutting-edge thinker and authority on the performance practices of 16th to 18th century music.
One of the hallmarks of The New York Collegium's work is enlightened programming that connects music to its historical context. Mr. Parrott's approach to the Biber recording continues in this vein. Here, by judiciously adding instrumental pieces of the period and liturgical chant around the parts of Biber's Missa, he has evoked a church service in Salzburg one century before the young Mozart. Integral to this historical context are several instrumental sonatas by Biber, as well as works by contemporaries he would have known. Thus, the Missa is paced by solo organ toccatas, played by Eric Milnes, honoring two of Biber's colleagues in nearby Vienna, the organist/composers Johann Kaspar Kerll and Alessandro Poglietti, among the most important composers in the generation before J. S. Bach. An Easter-Day Introit by Johann Stadlmayr, Kapellmeister at Salzburg earlier in the century, opens the performance. This musical artifact is restored to its context through the research of Salzburg-based musicologist Dr. Ernst Hintermaier, who ascertained that the Introit was performed every Easter at Salzburg Cathedral for the remainder of the 17th century.
Chant is a prominent feature of the album. Modern audiences and church goers often think of chant as confined to the Middle Ages. Andrew Parrott reminds us that it was a living tradition throughout centuries of Christendom, indeed until Vatican II in the 1960's. Another brilliant touch from Parrott is in knitting together this recorded program as a complete service (rather than presenting the movements of the mass one after another). In doing so, he provides a richer and more truthful juxtaposition of plainchant with vocal polyphony and instrumental pieces.
Bohemian-born violinist and composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber spent most of his working life-from 1670 to his death in 1704-in the service of the Prince-Archbishops at Salzburg. In his day he was famous as a virtuoso violinist; his violin sonatas testify to his extraordinary technique on the instrument, as well as his facility as a composer. Even a hundred years later music historian Charles Burney remarked, "of all the violin players of the last century Biber seems to have been the best, and his solos are the most difficult and most fanciful of any music I have ever seen of the same period."
Biber also composed first-rate sacred music (nearly 100 works) both for private devotion and for the magnificent Salzburg Cathedral, accommodating his compositions to the architecture and acoustics of the structure. Therefore, the Missa appears to be written for two antiphonal vocal ensembles, a group of winds (cornetts & sackbuts), a group of strings, some vocal soloists, with two trumpets stationed across the transept from one another.
Recording Producer Nicholas Parker explained the challenge of translating this live set-up into a modern surround sound recording. "During the planning stage Andrew Parrott was keen to explore some of the possibilities presented by new technologies that have become available in recent years. The benefits of surround engineering are obvious for all music recording, but are particularly evident when working with repertoire that calls for multiple sound reflections set within a deliberately large and resonant acoustic." Mr. Parker and Maestro Parrott experimented with this physical and aural placement, aided by historical accounts and imagery from Salzburg Cathedral. Indeed, the packaging of the recording's liner notes displays a detail from a 1682 etching depicting groups of musicians very similar to the forces of the Missa performing from the four galleries and the cathedral floor at Salzburg.
Missa Christi Resurgentis was most likely written some time around 1674 for Easter services under Prince-Archbishop Maximilian Gandolph in Salzburg Cathedral. It is preserved in a set of parts in the library and music archives of the Archbishop's Castle in the Moravian city of Kromeriz (in today's Czech Republic), which houses many manuscripts of Biber's compositions. British musicologist James Clements, a curator of the British Library Music Collection and a specialist in 17th-century Austrian and Czech music, analyzed and edited these parts, producing an edition of the work published by A-R Editions, Inc.
The recording concludes with Biber's "Resurrection" sonata, the eleventh of his so-called "Mystery sonatas" for solo violin. It is presented as a reflection upon the Missa and the mystery of Christ's resurrection. The work is representative of Biber's innovation as a composer and violinist in his use of scordatura tuning. Many of Biber's violin sonatas require the violin to be tuned to different than normal pitches. This was one of the composer's methods of exploring new sound colors and sonorities. The "Resurrection" sonata employs his most extreme alternate tuning-the four strings tuned in octave pairs-which creates a luminous, clear sonority. It is masterfully played here by violinist Ingrid Matthews.
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Track Listings (22) - Disc #1