Search - Andrew Smith, Victoria, Mccarthy :: Mother of God

This recording offers a glimpse into the rich tradition of Marian devotion, uniting the music of Andrew Smith with the motets by Spanish composer Tomas Luis de Victoria. Victoria's rich polyphonic settings are heard here in tandem with Smith's sympathetic, contemporary interpretations of some of the most beautiful Marian texts. The musical worlds of Smith and Victoria are framed by a spoken narrative drawn from the work of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the great poetic voices of the past century. This newly conceived sequence of Rilke's poetry is not sung, but heard as the spoken narrative linking the Latin motets. His perceptive, commonsense voice unites his message with a playful, unaffected, almost impious joy in the ordinary/extraordinary course of the events he relates--The Nativity, Mary's relationship to her son, his first miracle at the wedding at Cana, before and during his Passion, his Resurrection, and finally Mary's own death.