Violinist and conductor Andrew Manze has mostly gone from triumph to triumph in his recording career, and from the outset it appears his Harmonia Mundi super audio CD, Biber: Missa Christi resurgentis, would offer more of the same. The front cover is emblazoned with a lovely trumpeting angel, a detail from a painting by early seventeenth century Bolognese master Gian Giacomo Sementi, the super audio CD sound is superb, and Manze's name used in connection with that of Biber is generally sufficient to recommend itself. The ...
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Violinist and conductor Andrew Manze has mostly gone from triumph to triumph in his recording career, and from the outset it appears his Harmonia Mundi super audio CD, Biber: Missa Christi resurgentis, would offer more of the same. The front cover is emblazoned with a lovely trumpeting angel, a detail from a painting by early seventeenth century Bolognese master Gian Giacomo Sementi, the super audio CD sound is superb, and Manze's name used in connection with that of Biber is generally sufficient to recommend itself. The Missa Christi resurgentis is a Salzburg-era Biber work preserved in the form of parts at Kromeríz Castle edited and rescued by musicologist James D. Clements, published only in 2000 and not premiered in modern times until 2004. Curiously, there are many things about Biber: Missa Christi resurgentis that simply do not work, and the production as a whole is well below Manze's usual standard, although some parts of it remain quite good. Here Manze is working with the English Concert, the...
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