Virtually the same comments I made in my earlier review of these same performers’ recording of the Lassus Penitential Psalms (type Q10113 in Search Reviews) apply to this new release. That is, “Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Gent offer the most sonorous, vocally vibrant versions of these works, with taut ensemble and a natural, unforced symmetry among melody, rhythm, tempo, and text.” And in this last set of “cantiones sacrae” Lassus delights in exploiting abundant possibilities for musical imagery, many examples of which are cited by Ingace Bossuyt in the excellent liner notes. In these moments, which illustrate words and ideas such as life, grief, blessed, peace, or even sharp arrows of the mighty, Lassus so masterfully weaves the musical effects into the thematic material and texture that unless you’re really paying attention to the text you won’t notice as you would in a similar but consequently gimmicky effort by a lesser composer. But if you do understand the words in question, you will easily realize and appreciate the composer’s method. In one instance, when speaking of “folly”, Lassus does employ a more blatantly demonstrative–and at the time decidedly “unmannered”–technique, requiring the voices to sing in “parallel thirds and sixths”.
Throughout the choir revels in the extraordinarily facile polyphony while making sure to give proper emphasis to chordal sections–and we can always clearly hear those marvelous and important inner parts! While each of the motets has its own character and appeal, for me the two most sonorous and affecting are Deficiat in dolore vita mea and Diligam te, Domine–but the stylistic similarities among the 14 works are such that listeners undoubtedly will just enjoy the flow through the entire collection as it is wholly presented here. The sound, from the Chapelle de l’ancien Séminaire in Gent, Belgium, is just perfect. And I can add one more pertinent quote from my review of the Penitential Psalms cited above: “Bravo!” [10/22/2008]
