This is avowedly an antihistorical reading of Tomás Luís de Victoria's great Requiem mass of 1605, a work from the end of his life that harnesses smooth Counter-Reformation polyphony to mass settings of great expressive power. There's a stately power to the music that's matched by few other a cappella choral compositions of the Renaissance era, and the British choir Tenebrae, under Nigel Short, exploits its expressive qualities to the hilt. The mass is in six parts, deployed among a choir consisting of eight sopranos, ...
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This is avowedly an antihistorical reading of Tomás Luís de Victoria's great Requiem mass of 1605, a work from the end of his life that harnesses smooth Counter-Reformation polyphony to mass settings of great expressive power. There's a stately power to the music that's matched by few other a cappella choral compositions of the Renaissance era, and the British choir Tenebrae, under Nigel Short, exploits its expressive qualities to the hilt. The mass is in six parts, deployed among a choir consisting of eight sopranos, three altos (two male, one female), six tenors, and three basses. This is not far from what listeners of Victoria's time would have heard, albeit with all male voices, but the polyphony is somewhat subordinated to expressive demands; if there's something to be emphasized with a swelling line, Short emphasizes it. This is not to say he goes beyond the boundaries of the style, and it's certainly not to say that the voices of Tenebrae are in any way inadequate; this is small group choral...
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