Search - Josquin Desprez, Constanzo Willaert, Alexander Blachly :: Musica Vaticana - Music from the Vatican Manuscripts (1505-1534) /Pomerium * Blachly

It's hardly surprising that the 16th-century popes who commissioned Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes wanted equally magnificent music for the services there; on this superb (and superbly illustrated) disc, you'll find sumptuous motets from the Vatican Library's splendidly illuminated music manuscripts of the period. Of the composers represented, only Josquin des Prez is well-known today, but Jean Mouton and Adriaan Willaert (among others) won't disappoint. Most striking are those works that use canon (where a voice follows exactly what a previous voice has sung, as in a round): for example, in Josquin's five-voice Virgo salutiferi, the tenor and soprano sing in canon the old chant melody for the Ave Maria; Costanzo Festa's remarkable Inviolata, integra et casta has two four-voice choirs in canon, one following the other first an octave higher, then a fifth above, then a fourth. The New York-based choir Pomerium has a smooth delivery reminiscent of the Tallis Scholars, but with a grainier sound that keeps the voices distinctly audible; conductor Alexander Blachly makes no overt statements with dynamics or tempo, but maintains a steady sense of momentum and the various voices' ebb and flow. In more than 20 years of recording, this group has never sounded better. --Matthew Westphal