Search - Robert Hollingworth :: Striggio: Mass in 40 Parts

A feast of Renaissance choral music from Italy and England, the album (and bonus DVD) reveals a work by the Italian Alessandro Striggio - believed lost until the recent discovery of vocal parts, in Paris. Striggio's 40-part mass was itself based on his own 40-part motet, which is also included on the album. The mass is a spectacularly colorful and dramatic work, which in the final Agnus Dei calls for no fewer than 60 individual vocal parts. Striggio travelled extensively to the courts of Europe and it was probably a performance during his visit to Elizabethan England in 1567 that inspired Tallis to write Spem in alium, which is performed here with rarely heard instrumental accompaniment and the benefit of a major piece of textual change reinforcing the message of forgiveness The DVD includes a short documentary about the rediscovery of the mass, as well as excerpts from the recording in 5.1 Surround Sound.