Search - Morales, Consortium Carissimi :: Virgo Maria

An Italianate Spaniard

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 03/21/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Cristobal Morales was an international composer, both in terms of his travels and of his musical infuences. A biography of him would have to include a lot of suppositions, including the probability that he was an ordained priest. Certainly he had close connections to the clerical and musical establishments in Rome and in Toledo. Nearly all of his music is liturgical or quasi-liturgical, and thus his texts are Latin. The influence of the great Franco-Flemish composers, like Josquin, was still paramount in Spain at the time of Morales's musical training, and it can be heard in the polyphony of all the greatest Spanish composers of the 16th Century. It's immediately obvious in the ribbon-like extension of musical phrases in the polyphony of these dialogue motets. Morales is said to have been influenced also by more characteristically Spanish composers like Francisco Guerrero, but I truly can't hear anything Iberian in this group of 17 compositions. Instead I hear the influence of the Italians whom Morales must have met in Rome, in the concentration of musical interest in the outer lines, the soprano and bass, rather than the highly intellectualized emphasis on structure of the Franco-Flems.



Consortium Carissimi is predominantly an Italian ensemble, founded in 1996 with the express intention of "uncovering and bringing to modern ears the long-forgotten Italian-Roman sacred and secular music of the 16th and especially 17th century." Three of their four CDs marketed so far have featured the music of Giacomo Carissimi, their namesake. Those CDs have indeed been revelations of musical excellence, both of the composer and of the ensemble. This recording of Morales is their first venture into the earlier repertoire, and it is slightly less convincing. I've given it a five-star rating, but I know I won't listen to it as often as to the Carissimi-by-Carissimi disks. Perhaps there's just a bit too much uniformity of style in Morales's motets, or a bit too little boldness of interpretation in the Consortium's performance, but I find my attention wandering from a full seventy-one minutes of this music, even though the selection is varied by quite tasty instrumental support.



The most compelling thing about Consortium Carissimi is the voice of bass Garrick Comeaux, who seems to be the de facto leader of the consort as well as the producer of this CD. Comeaux's lowest register is as vibrant and melodic as any operatic basso profundo I've ever heard, and he moves through the whole gambit of his range without any audible stress. If you have any experience of choral singing, you might want to hear this CD just for Comeaux.



I can't think of another recording of Morales than compares with this one in quality of performance. That sounds like "faint praise," doesn't it? Honestly, I admire this music more than I enjoy it."