Search - Cavalli, Seicento Ens, Holman :: Messa Concertata

Cavalli, remembered now as an opera composer, spent his entire career on staff at San Marco in Venice and wrote a lot of sacred music. The Missa Concertata is more lightly scored than Gabrieli's music for San Marco of 50 years earlier: it uses eight voices with only two violins, three trombones, and continuo. The writing is similarly light and clear, the quick triple-time bits are occasionally repetitive, but the contemplative sections are truly lovely--especially the falling suspensions of the Crucifixus and the Agnus Dei's old-style polyphony. Peter Holman and his fine musicians perform one-singer-per-part; while they don't reconstruct a whole service with chant and readings, they do interpose some beautiful instrumental canzonas and solo motets as would have been done in 17th-century Venice. --Matthew Westphal