Reviews
GMCD 7296 Paradisi Portas
American Record Guide January/February 2007
CARDOSO: Mass, Paradisi
Portas; Sitivit Anima Mea; LOBO: Audivi Vocem de Caelo;
Pater Peccavi; LEITAO DE
AVILES: Adjuva Nos; BRITO: Heu, Domine; MORAGO: Jesu Redemptor; ARANDA: Quomodo
Sedet Sola
Tom Wilkinson, org;
Queen's College Choir/ Owen Rees, Guild 7296, 63 minutes
The principal work in
this program of liturgical music from early 17th-Century Portugal is the
six-part Paradisi Portas Mass by Manuel Cardoso (1566-1650). The title comes
from the words of a Lenten responsory ("The time of fasting has opened for us
the gates of paradise"), but this is not a Lenten work. It appears to be based
an the motet 'Vivo Ego Dicit Dominus' by Cardoso's patron, Duke Joao of Braganca,
who became King John IV of Portugal in 1640 following the Portuguese rebellion
against Spanish
rule. It
is certainly not based an Cardoso's motet of the same name, also included an the
program. The mass was published in 1636, and Owen Rees suggests in his program
notes that the title refers more to the aspirations for Portuguese independence
from Spain than to the liturgical function or musical source for the setting. On
this recording other motets and organ pieces are inserted between the movements
of the mass. The choral music is conservative for its time, adhering to the
traditional vocal polyphonic style, though perhaps more harmonically directed
than one might find in music of earlier generations.
The mixed choir of The
Queen's College, Oxford delivers a decent choral sound, but not to the standard
of such undergraduate mixed choirs as Trinity and Clare Colleges, Cambridge, let
alone the finest English professional concert choirs. Apart from that, one must
question whether this light and unmistakably English sound is an appropriate
vehicle for music from the Iberian peninsula. I must confess that I found
nothing particularly exciting about this recording.
GATENS
CMQ September 2006
PARADISI
PORTAS: Music from 17th-century Portugal
Choir of Queen's College, Oxford/Tom Wilkinson (Organ)/
I
Write this as Portugal has been knocked out of the World Cup. Scolari, Ricardo
et al. could do well to sooth their sorrows with this excellent selection of
music from fellow Iberians, Duarte Lobo, Manuel Cardoso and Pablo Burana. While
Salvatore Sacco and Palestrina were calming the musical sensitivities of Vatican
priests, Cardoso's preoccupation was the João, Duke of Braganca, who was to
become King John IV of Portugal, the accredited composer of Crux fulelis.
Cardoso's Missa Paradisi portas is the central work - yes, we have
another CD constructed around the Mass - laced with organ music and
plainsong from his contemporaries.
The Gramophone June
2006 (63' • DDD • T/t),
'Paradisi
portas'
Music by Anonymous,
Aranda, Avilez, Brito, Bruna, Cardoso, Lôbo, Morago and Olague
Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford/Owen Rees with Tom Wilkinson org Portugal's
music past revealed
Owen Rees continues his
exploration of the Portuguese polyphonic repertoire with this fine anthology
centred around Cardoso's Missa Paradisi portas, hitherto unrecorded. Rees points
out the political implications of the work, related as it is to a motet,
Vivo
ego dicit Dominus,
written by Duke John of Braganza, in a Portugal then under Spanish rule. It's an
impressive work and serves well as a framework for the rich variety of other
rare works included here. Among these, particularly noteworthy are Morago's Jesu
redemptor, Brito's Heu, Domine, Aranda's Quomodo sedet sola, with
its remarkable amalgamated text, and the anonymous Obra de falsas cromáticas,
which ought to make any organist's mouth water.
The Choir of Queen's
College clearly relish singing this music but there are moments when I wish
speeds had been a little slower (most notably in the opening Audivi vocem
by Duarte Lôbo, which sounds almost perfunctory). Rees is not afraid to have the
entire choir sing the chant, as in the alternatim Kyrie of the Mass, an
example :that could usefully be followed by other conductors, and the choral
blend is excellent. Ivan Moody
International Record Review April 2006
Guild GMCD7296
(full price, 1 hour
3 minutes),
Cardoso
Missa Paradisi portas.
Choir of
Queen's College, Oxford/Owen Rees
with Tom Wilkinson
(organ).
Anonymous
Obra de falsas cromäticas
de primo tono. Manducaverunt, et saturati sunt.
Tantum ergo sacramentum.
Aranda Quomodo sedet sola. Brito Heu, Domine. Bruna Tiento de primo
tono de mano derecha.
Paradisi portas. Sitivit
anima mea. Leitao de Aviles Adjuva nos.
Lobo Audivi vocem de caelo.
Pater peccavi. Morago Jesu redemptor, suscipe illam. Olague Verso
do primo tom. Reis Concertato sobre o canto chao de Ave Maria.
Latin texts and English
translations included. Producer David Trendell. Engineer Andrew
Lang. Date April 19th-21st, 2005.
Previous Guild discs by
the Choir of Queen's College, Oxford have for the most part featured works by
twentieth-century English composers. This latest release is therefore somewhat
of a departure in being a première recording of seventeenth-century Portuguese
composer Manuel Cardoso's
Missa Paradisi portas,
interspersed
with motets and organ pieces by other composers of the same milieu.
Manuel Cardoso
(1566-1650),
mestre da capela
and sub-prior at the
Carmehte Convent in Lisbon, found favour with both King Joao IV of Portugal and
King Philip IV of Spain; many of his works are dedicated to the former,
including a collection of Masses that contains the
Missa Paradisi portas.
Other pieces
an the recording include motets by Duarte Lobo, de Aviles, Aranda and an
anonymous
Tantum ergo sacramentum
which Owen Rees quite
rightly calls exquisite. In his booklet notes, Rees also says that, while not
aiming at a liturgical reconstruction (or originality), he has tried with this
recording to 'give some idea of the way motets and organ music were frequently
employed at Mass in between the movements of the polyphonic Mass Ordinary'. Thus
the tracks after the
Gloria
are grouped under such
headings as 'At the Gradual' or 'At Communion', reflecting liturgical function.
So, provided you at
least get the gist of the spiritual import of the text, this format suggests not
only the ceremonial qualities of the Eucharist but gives the entire programme an
almost symphonic emotional shape. The music's adapting traditional
sixteenth-century polyphony to seventeenth-century ideas about harmony only adds
further to a listening experience that appeals to both head and heart.
Those who don't have a
problem with the pure yet complex palate of a youthful mixed choir of this kind
(and I don't) will find the performances more than satisfactory. Ensemble,
Intonation and Balance are excellent; Rees's direction allows for careful yet
expressive shaping of phrases according to the meaning of the text, without
trumping the composer's changes in texture. Just listen to the confident
approach in the
Credo,
the climax an `de caelis'
draining into a beautifully serene yet perfectly controlled `Et incarnatus .. ',
the whole crowned by a luminous, forthright `Amen'.
The organ pieces, played
with great delicacy by Queen's College Organ Scholar Tom Wilkinson, are both
attractive and interesting: Bruna's
Tiento de prima tono de
mano
derecha,
with its slightly zany
syncopations, is particularly engaging. And if the acoustic of the Chapel of
Queen's College really sounds as good as Guild's recording has it, I can't wait
to visit.
Were this magazine silly
enough to utilize a star system, I’d give this disc five out of five.
Robert Levett
MusicWeb Tuesday April 25 2006
An
attractive programme – much of it unfamiliar – very competently performed.
Recommended to those with an interest in the period. ... Glyn Pursglove
Paradisi Portas:
Music from 17th Century Portugal
Duarte LOBO (c.1565-1646)
Audivi vocem
de cælo [2:10]
Manuel CARDOSO (1566-1650)
Kyrie and Gloria, from Missa Paradisi portas [10:46]
ANONYMOUS
Obra de falsas cromáticas de 1° tono* [4:00]
Manuel LEITÃO DE AVILES (d.1630)
Tract: Adjuva nos [1:59]
Manuel CARDOSO (1566-1650)
Credo, from Missa Paradisi portas [8:33]
Duarte LOBO (c.1565-1646)
Pater peccavi [1:39]
Manuel CARDOSO (1566-1650)
Paradisi portas [2:31]
Pablo BRUNA (1611-1679)
Tiento de 1° tono de mano derecha* [4:26]
Manuel CARDOSO (1566-1650)
Sanctus, from Missa Paradisi portas [2:25]
Sitivit anima mea [3:18]
Benedictus and Agnus Dei, from Missa Paradisi portas [6:02]
COMMUNION CHANT
Manducaverunt, et saturati sunt [1:00]
ANONYMOUS
Tanto ergo sacramentum [2:23]
Estêvão de BRITO (c.1575-1641)
Heu, Domine [3:10]
Gaspar dos REIS (?) (d.1674)
Concertato sobre o canto chão de Ave Maria* [2:05]
Estêvão Lopes MORAGO (c.1573-after 1630)
Jesu redemptor, suscipe illam [1:27]
Martinho Garcia de OLAGUE (dates unknown)
Verso do 1° tom* [1:08]
Luis de ARANDA (d.1627)
Quomodo sedet sola [2:58]
* organ solo
 The
Choir of the Queen’s College, Oxford/Owen Rees
Tom Wilkinson (organ)
rec. 19-21 April 2005, Chapel of the Queen’s College, Oxford
GUILD
GMCD 7296 [63:08]
At the core of
this CD is Manuel Cardoso’s Missa Paradisi portas.
A fascinating figure, Cardoso joined the
Carmelite Order in 1588, taking vows in July of the following year. The
well-endowed Convento do Carmo in Lisbon had a substantial musical life,
including both singers and instrumentalists and Cardoso became the dominant
figure in the music of the Convent. Later he was in the service of the Duke of
Bragança, the future King John (João) IV of Portugal. Cardoso published three
books of masses, the Missa Paradisi portas appearing as the first in the
composer’s second collection, published in 1636. As Owen Rees points out in his
excellent booklet notes, the title of the mass is something of a puzzle, but may
contain an important clue to one dimension of its meaning. The words seem to be
an allusion to one of the responsories sung at Matins during the
first week of Lent:
Paradisi portas aperuit nobis jejunii
tempus: suscipiamus illud orantes, et deprecantes: Ut in die resurrectionis cum
Domino gloriemur.
The time of fasting has
opened for us the gates of paradise: let us undertake it, praying and pleading:
that on the day of resurrection we may rejoice with the Lord.
But the Mass makes no
use of the plainchant melody for this responsory; nor can it have been intended
for performance during Lent, since it includes the Gloria, never sung during
Lent. A setting of the responsory text as a motet for four voices which may be
by Cardoso – and which is also recorded here – again has no musical relationship
with the Mass. Rees points out that this second book of Masses was dedicated to
the future king and that in his dedication Cardoso points out that João had
provided him with his themes. >From 1580 onwards, Portugal had been ruled by
Spain; by the 1630s Portuguese hopes for the restoration of a Portuguese
monarch, of liberation from Spanish rule, were very much centred on João and
Rees persuasively demonstrates that Cardoso’s setting contains coded messages of
support for such hopes. It is a fascinating example of the way in which
Renaissance and Baroque artists – poets, composers, painters and architects
alike – often contrive to articulate political statements within works which
have no obvious or explicit political agenda; how patterns of patronage can
often contain clues to one level, at least, of a work’s meaning. Musically
speaking, the Mass is characteristic of Cardoso’s subtle use of counterpoint in
a manner much influenced by Palestrina. The music is richly textured, the
word-setting expressive, the use of dissonance subtle and effective.
Around the Mass, the CD
includes a variety of other music by Cardoso and his - more-or-less -
contemporaries. One of the finest pieces is Cardoso’s six-voice motet Sitivit
anima mea, based on a conflation of two Psalm texts - the generally
helpful documentation might have been a bit more explicit on the sources of some
of the texts - with its poignant spiritual yearning and its beautiful closing
passage as the text speaks of aspirations towards a flight to heavenly rest.
Elsewhere, the two surviving motets of Duarte Lobo are included. His remarkable
Audivi vocem de cælo makes a wonderful opening to the CD, one of the
minor masterpieces of Portuguese polyphony. Most of the unfamiliar music by
lesser-known masters such as Manuel Leitão de Aviles and Estèvão de Brito –
whose Heu, Domine is particularly striking – proves to be very
interesting and sometimes compelling.
The Frobenius organ in
Queen’s College Chapel – I have fond memories of going, as a student, to hear
early recitals on the organ at the time of its installation in 1965 – is heard
to attractive effect in four pieces, well played by Tom Wilkinson, that by the
Spaniard Pablo Bruna being particularly intriguing, with some unexpected
figurations and syncopations.
Throughout, the
performances are highly competent, the higher voices resonant and sure, the
handling of intricate textures generally very clear, the balance between
formality of structure and expressive detail well sustained. The programme has
been well chosen and constructed and the choir does it justice. The recorded
sound is excellent and captures well the acoustic of the chapel.
The booklet, as well as
a useful essay by Owen Rees – in English and German – contains full Latin texts,
with English translations and – a particular pleasure – a cover reproduction of
James Thornhill’s The Ascension, from the ceiling of the chapel, a fine
piece of English baroque art. Glyn Pursglove
revised Tuesday April 03 2007
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