Requiem: Music for Philip II
This is arguably the most impressive recording the Gabrieli Consort has ever made. Here you have a low-voiced choir, accompanied only by a bassoon, singing more than an hour of music that is austere even as funeral masses go--yet it all sounds positively gorgeous. Paul McCreesh's tempi are slow, but his sensitive phrasing and dynamics keep the music from ever seeming static. Where most groups rush through plainchant passages as if they'd rather not have to do them at all, these musicians take the chant seriously--and make it sound integral to the music rather than like boring but obligatory preliminaries. As usual, McCreesh sets the music in liturgical context (a memorial Mass for Philip II of Spain); the liturgy itself seems a work of art--for example, the gospel lesson (Jesus and Martha after the death of Lazarus) is unexpectedly touching. McCreesh has taken music that can seem forbiddingly sober and shown it to be mournful, powerful, serene, and sweet.--Matthew Westphal