Search - Jacob Obrecht, János Bali, Andras Koncz :: Obrecht: Missa De Sancto Donatiano; Missa Sicut spina rosam /ANS Chorus * Bali

The Mismeasurement of Music

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 01/07/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I don't like this performance much, or for that matter any of the recordings of Obrecht by the ANS Chorus. They're murky in timbre and the lines of polyphony move in surges, leapfrogging each other so that one hears them in vertical chunks rather than as 'horizontally' independent musical sentences. I can't help but hear "measures" -- bar lines -- in this performance, and 'that ain't good', especially when the diction of the ensemble is also rather raggedy. The result is more 'chaophony' than polyphony. It can be a soothing spiritual background buzz, I suppose, but nothing more.



I've bought some of the ANS Chorus recordings of Agricola, Obrecht, and Senfl when no other choices were available, but the CDs end up gathering dust. There are several very good recordings of masses and motets by Jacob Obrecht, sung the The Clerks' Group. If you really want to make a head-to-head comparison, I have wonderful news for you; the Dutch ensemble Cappella Pratensis has issued a spectacular recording of Obrecht's Missa de sancto Donatiano, in a CD/DVD package for a very modest price. I reviewed that performance just a day ago. The DVD presents an amazingly clear 'lesson' in how this music is organized and how it should sound. But I think just listening to the amazon samples of the two offerings might be enough to demonstrate what I like about the one and dislike about the other."