Magnificat - Philippe Rogier - All Music
01 September 2011
AllMusic.comJames Manheim
Philippe Rogier
was a Fleming who was brought to Spain in 1572, when he was about 11,
to sing in the chapel choir of King Philip II. He died young, at age 35,
and many of his works were lost in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. For
these reasons his work remained obscure in the general 20th century
rediscovery of Renaissance music, but more than 200 of his works
survived, some of them in manuscripts from as far away as Mexico. The
British group Magnificat and conductor Philip Cave
undertake an admirable effort to explore the music of this composer,
whose style included elements of both Venetian polychoral music and
classic Franco-Flemish polyphony. Sometimes, as in the two spectacular
motets that close out this album, the same piece could contain both,
with multiple choirs alternating polyphonic structures. Magnificat delivers clear, stirring performances, with the brass and wind instruments of His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts
artfully deployed in arrangements that bring out the basic structure of
the music. The main event here is a triple-choir work, the Missa Domine
dominus noster, with an assured handling of the large forces that puts
this unknown piece on a par with other unusually large pieces like the Tallis motet Spem in alium (which Magnificat
has also recorded). Everything is clear in the performance, which is
superbly recorded by the audiophile label Linn. The Missa Domine in
virtute tua is a parody mass based on a motet by Palestrina, also recorded here and performed a cappella. A parody of Palestrina in the Gabrieli
style isn't something that was common in Italy itself, and it's a tour
de force intellectually as well as being luxurious and exciting to hear
in its own right. For fans of the polychoral style of the late Baroque
this recording is likely to come as a major revelation.
Related Links
Magnificat
Philippe Rogier - Polychoral Works
