This sumptuous two-disc Renaissance choral release by the group Magnificat finds a nifty way of tying together repertory by diverse composers without reference to liturgy or purely musical considerations. Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) was a Dominican friar of Renaissance Florence who railed against papal corruption and was tortured and killed for his trouble; the scattered ashes of the title refer to the disposition of his corpse, which was cremated so that it could not serve as a rallying point for his admirers. During ...
Read More
This sumptuous two-disc Renaissance choral release by the group Magnificat finds a nifty way of tying together repertory by diverse composers without reference to liturgy or purely musical considerations. Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) was a Dominican friar of Renaissance Florence who railed against papal corruption and was tortured and killed for his trouble; the scattered ashes of the title refer to the disposition of his corpse, which was cremated so that it could not serve as a rallying point for his admirers. During his imprisonment, Savonarola composed meditations on biblical texts, and it is these, more or less distant from psalms and other biblical sources, that are set here. The most famous of them, Infelix ego (Unhappy I), is set twice, by Orlande de Lassus and William Byrd, and a comparison of these two gives a feel for the deep resonances of the album. The lengthy texts are deployed against multi-section motets. Sample Tristitia obsedit me (CD one, track three), by Claude Le Jeune, a...
Read Less