This German disc is part of a growing group that attempts to put the sacred music of the Renaissance in the context of its daily and local use rather than treating favorite masses and motets in isolation as aesthetic artifacts. The enterprise at this point is of a specialist nature, but the German group Capella de la Torre here achieves a program that any fan of Renaissance music can enjoy. The hybrid SACD sound is gorgeous, recorded in a favorite spot for European engineers, St. Osdag's Church in the hamlet of Mandelsloh, ...
Read More
This German disc is part of a growing group that attempts to put the sacred music of the Renaissance in the context of its daily and local use rather than treating favorite masses and motets in isolation as aesthetic artifacts. The enterprise at this point is of a specialist nature, but the German group Capella de la Torre here achieves a program that any fan of Renaissance music can enjoy. The hybrid SACD sound is gorgeous, recorded in a favorite spot for European engineers, St. Osdag's Church in the hamlet of Mandelsloh, near Hannover. The blend of the small vocal group (essentially one voice per part) with the accompanying shawms, dulcian, Renaissance trombone, and recorders is close enough to be warm but detached enough to be heard as a whole. With that observation you come to the disc's most unusual feature for the general listener who is still not used to hearing Renaissance sacred music with instruments, but it's happening more and more often, and the dry but nontechnical booklet for this disc...
Read Less
