Search - Campra, Gardiner, Ebs :: Messe Des Morts

A voice teacher and early music fan

George Peabody | Planet Earth | 12/07/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A THEATRICAL REQUIEM - JUST LOVE IT!!!!



Andre Campra (1660-1744), the most important composer between Lully and Rameau, began his career as a church musician in 1694 at the cathedral of Notre Dame. In 1700, he resigned and became musical director of the Academie Royale, presiding over revivals of Lully's operas while also presenting a fresh work each year.



By comparison with Lully, Campra's style appears more melodic and more polyphonic. His harmonic structure is more modulatory, and above all, he never renounced Italianism, which is very evident in his Requiem that displays musically his theatrical interest.



Campra, in addition to his large output of theatre music, did not by any means 'skimp' on his sacred music. He wrote over twenty cantatas, one-hundred motets, songs and airs and a setting of the Requiem Mass which is on this disc.



Mere words cannot describe the incredibile loveliness of this mass. It is one beautiful melody after another with an instrumental accompaniment that is light and pleasant and exciting using mostly woodwinds(flutes) and strings and therebo.



The vocal soloists are interspersed throughout the Mass, but not so much that the Monteverdi Choir is left out. On the contrary, it is really about seventy-five percent choir and they are marvelous in their delivery of all the choruses therein. The tone quality is buoyant, the diction is flawless and the emotional investment is great. The soloists simply add to the choir's contribution, and they too are excellent.



This is a 1981 recording, and surely is one of Gardiner's masterpieces.!"