Reviews
GMCD 7243 O Crux / Spanish Choral Music
Organist's Review - May 2003
O Crux
- Spanish Choral music
Coro Cervantes director Carlos
Fernńdez Aransay, Tansy Castledine organ. lsaae Albéniz Salmo VI del 0cleio
de difuntos; Enrique
Granados Salve
Regina; L’Eherba del'amor;
Manuel de
Falla
Invocatio ad Individuam trinitatem;
Salve en el mar,
Vieente Goicoechea
Christe Factus est; Ave Maria,
Amado Vives
0 Salutaris;
Fernando Sor
0 Crux;
Tόmas Brgéton
Salve montserratina;
Hilarion Esiava
0 Sacrum convivium; Bone
Pastor, Felipe
Pedrell A solis ortus;
0 gloriosa Virginum Francisco Barbieri Libererame Domine; Versa
est in luctum; Nicolás de Ledesma Salve Regina; Juan
Arriaga 0 salutails; Jésus de
Monasterio
Qui manducat meam carnem.
Recorded 2002;'IT 79138". Guild
GMCD7243.
According to the concisely
informative notes, it is a wonder, given the political upheavals in 19th century
Spain, that there was any sacred music at all. Not until 1903 was its importance
re- established. On this CD we have almost 80 minutes of excellent music,
interpreted by the brilliant young director Carlos Fernández Aransay. Some of
the names will certainly be wll-known from compositions in other media, but many
of the others may wll be encountered for the first time; the great majority of
These pieces are world premiere recordings.
The first piece on the CD, a psalm
from the Office for the Dead by Albéniz, is
slow, predominantly chordal and
sombre and sets the mood beautifully. The Salve setting by Granados has
some imaginative organ phrases as interludes, whilst in the setting by Bréton a
chant introduces a more modern idiom. One of the best pieces on the disc is the
Salve by
Ledesma, an organist from Aragon.
The Salutaris by Vives has an organ accompaniment with repeated chords in
the LH, and is almost operatic; after a soprano solo the full choir enters for
the repetition of the text. The setting by Arriaga, who died aged only 20 in
1826, is much gentler - one can only wonder what the boy may have produced had
he lived longer. Sor's 0 Crux has a finely melodic soprano line, and the
two pieces by Eslava (better known, perhaps, for his comprehensive organ method)
are simple and effective, Bone Pastor being a rare work here in triple
time. The two pieces by Barbieri both have some highly dramatic word-painting,
here rendered with precision by the choir. Eherba de l'amor by Granados
has a nicely intonated soprano solo, (the text is sung in Catalan), leading to a
gradual build up of voices. In similar vein is the build up in Qui manducat
by de Monasterio. Vicente Goicoechea's Christe Factus est is highly
chromatic. Despite many of them being slow in pace and frequently dark in mood,
the other works all have their own charm, and the director's enthusiasm and love
for this music is evident 'Thee choir have responded with an excellent
disciplined performance, and Tansy Castledine's sympathetic organ accompaniment
is never obtrusive.
The accompanying booklet gives an
interesting historical background and brief notes on the composers, the
specification of the organ used (Exeter College, Oxford), and especially useful
for those wishing to explore the pieces for themselves there is a list of the
publishers of the modern editions. For the reviewer, it was a an wonderful
introduction to Spanish choral music of the post-Baroque; 1 do hope that Carios
Aransay will make many more such recordings to bring us the riches of this
repertoire.
John Collins
International Record Review 12.02.02
In Ealry Music – an
overview of the latest releases
Finally, a disc that
slipped in by accident. The cover of “O Crux” suggests a programme of Spanish
choral music from the age of Victoria. But no, it’s actually a series of world
première recordings of mostly a cappella sacred music written in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. Albéniz, Granados, Manuel de Falla and
Fernando Sor as we have never heard them before: caught up in the mystery
of religion and drawing imaginatively, and often very audibly, on the styles of
their illustrious ancestors. Coro Cervantes richly convey the intensity and
excitement of the discovery.
Guild GMCD
7243, 1 hour 20 mintues).
Gramophone December 02
The biggest surprise for me this reviewing
year was Elgar's complete organ works recorded in King's College Cambridge. No
great surprise in that, I hear you saying, but the surprise comes in the shape
of John Butt whose impressive performance skills have hitherto impressed, on
disc at least, in earlier repertory. I wonder if this is the start of something
new? But for my disc of the year I turn to an enchanting collection of rare
Spanish sacred choral music exquisitely performed by Coro Cervantes under Carlos
Fernández Aransay, the title of the disc being drawn from a lovely song by
Fernando Sor, O Crux.
Mark Rochester
O Crux, un disco
revelador. Revista mensual de publicación en Internet
Número 34º - Noviembre 2.002
O
CRUX, UN DISCO REVELADOR
Por Ignacio Deleyto Alcalá. Lee su Curriculum.
Tras
esta introducción en clave de humor, nos pondremos serios.
Este disco publicado por el sello GUILD presenta un infrecuente
repertorio de compositores españoles raramente
asociados a obras corales religiosas interpretado por el
Coro Cervantes, coro profesional creado bajo los
auspicios del Instituto Cervantes de Londres y que trabaja repertorio
exclusivamente español e hispanoamericano.
Un
disco que sorprende por la coherencia y calidad musical del programa y que
brinda al aficionado la oportunidad de tomar contacto con obras prácticamente
desconocidas. A medida que se profundiza en la escucha uno
tiene la sensación de ir descubriendo verdaderas joyas musicales
-y no exageramos un ápice- pues es uno de esos discos que cuanto más se
escuchan, más se disfrutan.
Un
audaz y riguroso trabajo que ha debido suponer un notable esfuerzo de
investigación, rebuscando por aquí y por allá. Y nos alegra
particularmente que haya sido un maestro español el que
lo firme: un inquieto director que ha sacado a la luz y conseguido grabar para
todos parte de ese ingente patrimonio coral que permanece muerto de risa en
archivos de iglesias y bibliotecas, dentro y fuera de
nuestras fronteras.
El
disco, de generosa duración, reúne diecinueve piezas, generalmente breves, para
coro a cappella o acompañadas de órgano, de las que destacaremos algunas. El
Salmo VI del Oficio de Difuntos de Albéniz rinde homenaje a los grandes maestros
del pasado. Su aparente sencillez da pie a un mensaje recogido en espíritu
aunque de contenido dramático. Su desnudez se ve acentuada por el sosegado tempo
marcado por Aransay que brinda una lectura serena aunque con momentos de
contenido apasionamiento. De gran belleza expresiva resulta la parte central de
este motete así como la inquietante y creciente intensidad dramática que culmina
en la frase “Salvum me fac propter”. En contraste, el
final es suave y silente.
Estatismo y gravedad son las notas dominantes en el Christus Factus est
del vasco Vicente Goicoechea. Un buen ejemplo de polifonía
desnuda, sin artificios, es la obra, de efecto balsámico, que da título al
disco: O Crux de Fernando Sor en la que podemos apreciar
la perfecta compenetración entre las diferentes cuerdas
del coro. Muy original y elaborada resulta la Salve
montserratina de Tomás Bretón que combina canto llano y polifonía con un toque
de modernidad en los juegos entre voces y órgano como en “gementes et flentes”.
Amadeo Vives firma O Salutaris, una breve pieza para voz solista y coro,
aquí en la voz de Debra Skeen. Aunque
Vives escribe O Salutaris, A Solo (Coro a 3 voces ad libitum), sin mayor
especificación, según Fernández Aransay "parece claro, por la clave que usa, que
es para soprano o voz blanca". Y es una voz blanca (más que la de una soprano)
la que uno tiene en mente cuando suenan los primeros acordes bajo el suave
acompañamiento del órgano. De carácter teatral, es una de
esas obras llamadas a gustar desde el primer momento y
cuya melodía no se olvidará fácilmente. Debra Skeen resuelve bien y demuestra
amplio fiato y holgura en el registro agudo aunque le falte dulzura y un punto
de ensoñación. De ecos wagnerianos es el motete Sacrum Convivium de Hilarión
Eslava cuyos guiños a los coros del maestro alemán no pueden pasar
desapercibidos. Su Bone Pastor presenta también momentos de gran belleza
potenciados por la expresiva dirección de Aransay. Con estos dos ejemplos, el
navarro Eslava, autor de la gran antología de música religiosa española Lira
sacrohispana, demuestra su faceta de gran compositor de música religiosa (Te
Deum, Miserere, etc).
De
Pedrell, máximo exponente del wagnerismo catalán y gran conocedor de nuestra
polifonía renacentista, tenemos dos muestras de las que
destacaremos el intenso A solis ortus en solemne y expresiva
interpretación. Otro favorito es el O Salutaris del lamentado
Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, una pequeña joya impregnada de sereno clasicismo. Si
con menos de veinte años era capaz de componer cosas así, es fácil pensar a
dónde habría llegado de haber vivido más tiempo. Las
sopranos tienen ocasión de lucirse en L’herba de l’amor de Granados, una
plegaria en estilo gregoriano, cantada en catalán y
dedicada a "La Moreneta". Hermoso final con una breve pero intensa frase solista
"Cap al Cel me'n volaria" a cargo de Lucy Crowe y
respondida por coro y órgano.
A
lo largo del disco el Coro Cervantes demuestra su capacidad para amoldarse a las
diferentes estéticas que recorren el ambicioso programa y muestra claridad en la
dicción, buen empaste, clara articulación y ejemplar fraseo. Por ningún lado
asoma la tantas veces mencionada frialdad inglesa en lo cual seguramente
Fernández Aransay haya tenido mucho que ver. Escúchese, por ejemplo, el Salve
Regina de Nicolás de Ledesma que rebosa calidez y expresividad por los cuatro
costados con una destacada intervención solista del tenor Anthony Hawgood. Hasta
se marcan un cierto y sugerente aire de habanera en
algunas frases. La obra permite también apreciar el bello
sonido del órgano del Exeter College de Oxford donde fue grabado este disco en
julio de 2000.
Sin
duda, estamos ante uno de los discos más originales y reveladores que han
llegado a nuestras manos en este año que ya termina. Si
FILOMUSICA otorgara premios a los mejores discos del año, nuestro voto se lo
llevaría esta fascinante recopilación coral de autores españoles. Disco, por
tanto, imprescindible para todos los amantes a la música coral.
Un
panorama de la música sacra romántica española:
Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909) - Salmo Vl del Oficio de difuntos
Enrique Granados (1867-1916) - Salve Regina
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) - Invocatio ad Individuam Trinitatem
Vicente Goicoechea (1854-1916) - Christus Factus est
Amadeo Vives (1871-1932) - O Salutaris
Fernando Sor (1778-1839) - O Crux
Tomás Bretón (1850-1923) - Salve montserratina
Hilarión Eslava (1807-1878) - O Sacrum convivium - Bone Pastor
Felipe Pedrell (1841-1922) - A solis ortus
Francisco Barbieri (1823-1894) - Liberame Domine
Vicente Goicoechea (1854-1916) - Ave Maria
Francisco Barbieri (1823-1894) - Versa est in luctum
Nicolás de Ledesma (1791-1883) - Salve Regina
Felipe Pedrell (1841-1922) - O gloriosa Virginum
Juan Arriaga (1806-1826) - O salutaris
Enrique Granados (1867-1916) - L’herba de l’amor
Jesús de Monasterio (1836-1903) - Qui manducat meam carnem
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) - "Salve en el mar" de Atlántida
REFERENCIAS:
O Crux Spanish Choral Music. Obras de Albéniz, Vives,
Sor, Bretón, etc. Coro Cervantes. Tansy Castledine,
órgano. Carlos Fernández Aransay,
director. GUILD. GMCD 7243.Distribuidor
en España: DIVERDI. E-mail: diverdi@diverdi.com
Página web: www.diverdi.com
BBC - Classical
Review - Coro Cervantes, O Crux (Spanish Choral Music)
Coro Cervantes, O Crux (Spanish Choral Music) (Guild)Their passion is balanced
by finely-nuanced direction and precise ensemble Coro
Cervantes O Crux (Spanish Choral Music) (Guild)
If most British listeners have an image at all of Spanish choral music, it will
be of Renaissance masters such as Victoria and Lobo, who brought a special
fervour to the seamless 16th-century contrapuntal style.
So neglected is 19th-century Spanish choral music that the majority of
recordings on this disc, recently selected by Gramophone as a Critics Choice CD
of the year, are world premières. The Coro Cervantes - Britain's only
professional group devoted to Hispanic classical repertoire - and their director
Carlos Fernández Aransay are clearly on a mission of discovery and recovery.
Their zeal shines forth in these performances, whose passion is balanced by
finely-nuanced direction and precise ensemble.
The excitement of discovery is especially palpable in the first four tracks of
the disc, which in their awestruck polyphony capture something of the spirit and
technique of the Renaissance greats, from the numinous opening of Albéniz's a
capella psalm setting to Vicente Goioechea's impassioned Christus Factus est,
via some splendid organ fanfares in Granados' Salve Regina and a perfect
minute-long sliver of a motet by Falla.
The appearance of great names such as Albéniz, Granados, Falla and Sor in the
unfamiliar guise of sacred choral music is one of the best surprises of the
collection.
At just under 80 minutes and with 19 tracks this disc is good value, though such
a rich feast demands a lot of the musical digestion. Every work but one is in
Latin, and the acoustic and organ of Exeter College chapel, Oxford make for a
somewhat uniform texture - albeit wonderfully mellow and full-bodied across a
well-balanced recording.But thoughtful programming is very helpful here, with a
capella numbers and those with organ accompaniment alternating to vary the
texture, and several works featuring a solo part peppered throughout. There's
also a range of idiom and mood, from the sublime intimacy of the more modern
opening numbers to the light-hearted and operatic, by way of Francisco
Barbieri's dramatic word-painting and Pedrell's densely syllabic settings.
If at times the quality of the music seem uneven, this is probably a fair
reflection of a period in which Spanish church music seems to have been under
attack from all sides, as first Napoleonic invaders and later the Spanish
government itself seized church assets, closed music chapels and finally banned
lay musicians from performing in churches. Hardly surprising that the choral
tradition became somewhat impoverished as a result - which makes the care and
attention that have clearly gone into assembling what is generally a very strong
collection all the more impressive.
Reviewer: Matthew Shorter
Gramopohone
10.02
O CRUX
Spanish Choral Music
Albéniz
Salmo VI del Oficio de difuntos
Arriaga O salutaris hostia Barbirei Libera me, Domine. Versa est in
lumm Bretón Salve Regina Montserratina Eslava O Sacrum convivium.
Bone Pastor panis vere Falla Atlántida - Salve en el mar.
Invocatio ad Individuam Trinitatem
Goicoechea Christus factus est.
Ave Maria Granados Salve
Regina. L'herba d l'amor Ledesma Salve Regina Monasterio Qui
manducat meam carnem Pedrell A solis ortus cardine. 0 gloriosa Virginum
Sor O Crux Vivas O Salutaris
Tansy
Castledine org
Coro Cervantes / Carlos Fernández Aransay
Guild (F) GMCD7243
(80 minutes: DDD) Texts and translations included
An entertaining British
take on rare 19th-century Spanish Choral music
Political upheavals in Spain during
the 19th century have been over-shadowed by those of the 20th
century, yet, as Carlos Aransay points out in his fascinationg note, for
virtually the entire 19th century political manoeuvrings had an absolutely
catastrophic effect on Spanish sacred music. With male religious orders and
boys' choirs abolished, music chapels all but abandoned and only ordained
priests allowed to perform music in church, it seems astonishing that Aransay
has managed to fill a single disc.
Certainly some of this music comes
from obscure composers such as Vicente Goicoechea - represented by a sumptuous
a cappella setting of Christus factus est and a distinguished
Ave Maria for male voices and organ - and Amadeo Vives, whose decidedly
operatic O Salutaris provides a splendid vehicle for the vocally
red-blooded Debra Skeen. But there is also a surprising number of names whose
reputations have been made in very different fields; Albéniz, clearly
pre-empting the sacred music of Poulenc in his richly expressive setting of
Psalm 6, Arriaga and Granados, both of whom adopt what can be best described as
a Mendelssohnian approach, Sor, whose neat exercise in quasi-17th-century
Italian polyphony gives the disc its title, and Falla, whose richly polyphonic
item from his cantata Atlántida is perhaps the one masterpiece here.
Polished and beautifully precise as
their singing is, there is no escaping the fact that Coro Cervantes is a British
choir, nor that the smooth-toned organ and warm and comfortable acoustic, so
admirably captured in this lovely recording, belong to an Oxford College
(Exeter) rather than a Spanish cathedral. But for all their Anglican overtones,
these singers, under the clearly-focused direction of the utterly Spanish Carlos
Aransay, reveal this to be music of far more than mere curiosity value; this is
a disc to enjoy on many levels.
Marc Rochester
Classics
Today – July 02
There are
several surprises on this recording, beginning with the repertoire--19th century
Spanish sacred music, much of which is recorded here for the first time and
nearly all of which will be virtually unknown to choral music listeners. Due to
the oppressive political situation in Spain during the 1800s--especially
devastating to the musical functions of the church--composers and choirs had
very little opportunity to further the development of any viable, legitimately
Spanish religious music. Consequently, the sacred music that was produced came
from beyond the borders of Spain and tended to owe its influence to more
prevalent European styles, particularly French and German, and to the
recognizable attributes of music by composers such as Fauré, Liszt, and Bruckner.
In fact, anyone who's comfortable in the dense-textured, profoundly dramatic,
harmonically expansive sound-world of any of the above-mentioned composers will
find much to enjoy on this generously filled (nearly 80-minute) CD. (In one of
this program's less-impressive selections there's even a nod to Mendelssohn at
his most cloying and sticky--Amadeo Vives' setting of O Salutaris; and Felipe
Pedrell's A solis ortus sounds like an English cathedral anthem by Stanford, or
any of a number of other very competent Anglican church composers from the
latter 19th century.)
Another
surprise is Coro Cervantes--a professional London-based ensemble "dedicated
solely to the Hispanic classical repertoire"--an exclusive niche if ever there
was one! Not surprisingly from an English choir, the standard of ensemble
singing is exceptionally high, and on both a technical and interpretive level
there's nothing to fault here. (Interestingly--and unusually--I didn't recognize
any of these 16 singers as belonging to any of the more prominent professional
London groups, which speaks well to this choir's exclusivity and commitment to
its narrow-focused vision.) Most listeners will find this program an enjoyable
if not thoroughly enlightening experience and will appreciate such ambitious and
passionately wrought works as Vicente Goicoechea's (1854-1916) Ave Maria or
Tomás Bretón's (1850-1923) Salve montserratina. There's much fascinating music
here--none of it especially original or even inspiring, but all of it worth
hearing for its priceless contextual/historical importance alone. If only the
sound, from Exeter College, Oxford, hadn't been recorded so closely and
obtrusively--then we could enjoy this excellent choir's performances in a truly
balanced, realistic concert-hall Perspective.
--David Vernier
Page revised 10.05.03
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