Track Listing

1. Missa 'Et Ecce Terrae Motus,' for 12 voices: Kyrie
2. Missa 'Et Ecce Terrae Motus,' for 12 voices: Gloria
3. Missa 'Et Ecce Terrae Motus,' for 12 voices: Credo
4. Missa 'Et Ecce Terrae Motus,' for 12 voices: Sanctus & Benedictus
5. Missa 'Et Ecce Terrae Motus,' for 12 voices: Agnus Dei
6. Lamentations
7. Magnificat Secundi Toni for 4 voices

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66900 in Music
• Released on: 2001-07-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .25 pounds

Customer Reviews

Brilliant and polished
Thomas Morley wrote in 1597 that only Antoine Brumel (c.1460 - 1515) and Josquin held the secrets to the older canonic techniques of the composers of the Prima Prattica. In an obviously sign of great admiration Orlando Lassus performed the Missa 'Et ecce terrae motus' over fifty years after Brumel's death, resulting in a copy of the work that has helped to preserve it for prosterity. This is a monumental work written in no less than 12 parts yet has a tremendous immediacy that gives it wide appeal. During Brumel's lifetime even Ottaviano Petrucci published a book of his masses, and a number of composers wrote pieces honoring him on his death.

Paul van Nevel recorded the World Premier Recording in 1990 that produced such a stir when it appeared that it generated other 'me too' recordings by the likes of the Tallis Scholars and Ensemble Clément Janequin. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Mary Berry writes a rather candid review in Gramophone magazine of the Tallis Scholar's recording that is well worth quoting:

"The Tallis Scholars sing a semitone higher than the written pitch, which is that chosen by the Huelgas Ensemble. Van Nevel cultivates a rich reedy vocal quality and the lower pitch has the advantage of encouraging deeper and darker sonorities; though the sound is more opaque, lacking the clarity of The Tallis Scholars."

Though undoutably transparent, the texual clarity however is somewhat relative due to the dominance of the sopranos in the sound somewhat obscuring that of other voices. Also due to use of coloring of the vocal tone with a sound more from the throat and chest, van Nevel's approach to this music is richer hued and differentiated than that of the bright, and homogeneous sounding English choral groups who insist on always only ever using a head voice. The resultant warmth is for me a great relief from the more puritanical English sound. Tempi adopted by the Tallis Scholars are also uncharacteristically brisk compared to either van Nevel or Dominique Visse and is combined with the their typically 'straight' phrasing.

It should be mentioned that the practice of transposing up or down for the comfort of the singers is perfectly in keeping with standard period practice and that singing the work untransposed is no more 'historically accurate' . However, I always feel that the darker, more chiaroscuro feel of the Huelgas sonority reminds me of the feel of a lot of contemporary painters who prefer a far more somber coloring, whereas the Tallis Scholars seem to have a bright clean texture more like a Picasso or Kandinsky. Then again Peter Phillips has even gone so far as to deny that the Tallis Scholars are even an early music choir - he just wants the music to sound like he thinks it should, which is based on an ideal he learnt while at Cambridge.

Mary Berry goes on:

"Where the two choirs differ most, however, is in the last movement, the Agnus Dei. The Munich source, used by both choirs, is deficient at this point and some reconstruction is needed. Van Nevel has supplied an ingenious canonic solution to the first (and third) Agnus Dei, with its ''virtuosic and turbulent'' progression of mensural changes. He has, moreover, replaced the missing Agnus Dei II by a section from an independent Danish source, a section rejected by Peter Phillips and Francis Knights on the grounds that it was scored for six voices only and voices using different ranges from those in the rest of the Mass. The net result is that the two choirs present what amounts to two completely different final movements."

Quite correctly, Van Nevel - whose version might be preferred on this ground alone - has carried out the more ingenious and thoroughly researched reconstruction of the missing parts.

However, perhaps the most telling comment of all by Mary Berry in her comparison of the Huelgas and Tallis Scholar Brumel recordings is that "there is an infectious warmth and sense of involvement in the singing of the Belgian group". While French critics tend to go on a bit in criticizing the Tallis Scholars for their 'perfection glacée' (icy perfection), this is about as close to an admission as you could ever expect from an English critic that the Huelgas Ensemble have a warmer and more expressive sound. Interestingly, all of these comments come from her review of the Tallis Scholar's recording - where she still ends up writing more about the Huelgas Ensemble than the Tallis Scholars.

The recording by Dominique Visse with the Ensemble Clément Janequin provides another stimulating alternative to the pioneering recording by Paul van Nevel. Visse uses 12 instruments and 12 voices with counter-tenors singing the top line whereas the Huelgas Ensemble include only 4 instruments and sopranos take the top lines. The result is a more colorful and vibrant performance of the sort you would expect from an excellent French early music group such as this. The results are fascinating - lower pitched and darker in timbre though just as brilliant in the final effect.

The Lamentation that comes coupled here is a particularly memorable work. Peter Phillips included this work in his list of 10 desert island works for Goldberg early music magazine and it is a work that definitely rewards discovering for yourself. The Brumel Lamentation is also available coupled with other similar works in the CD entitles Lamenta by the Tallis Scholars.

For many admirers of the Tallis Scholars this version will take pride of preference due to the brilliance and polish that they always command. However, in general I would personally encourage listeners to look beyond those other English reviewers who have predictably almost unconditionally praised this recording and turn first to the wonderful pioneering recording by the Huelgas Ensemble but also to that by the Ensemble Clément Janequin. The Tallis Scholars have made some wonderful recordings, including many that have been more successful than they been here.

Earth moving...
--Antoine Brumel--
Brumel, born in 1460, was one of the students of the great composer Josquin des Pres, becoming one of the great Franco-Flemish composers in his own right. He was particularly noted for his liturgical compositions,. He worked at the Cathedrals in Chartres and Laon, and was employed for a time in Notre Dame in Paris. There is evidence he also worked in Geneva, Chambery and Rome, having a rather wandering lifestyle common to musicians and composers of the time. His career highlight was serving as successor of his teacher Josquin in the court of Ferrara for 15 years, until his death in 1520.

--Missa Et ecce terrae motus--
This is a magnificient 12-part mass, the `Earthquake' mass. There are twelve voices employed throughout almost the entire mass, a rarity then or now. It was preserved through the auspices of Orlandus Lassus, who thought highly of the piece. It is hard to describe this mass in terms of polyphony, given the overwhelming number of voices that seemingly run together in non-conventional ways. Phillips describes the effect here as one of `decorating colossal harmonic pillars'. The piece is a bit slow-moving in tempo.

--Lamentations and Magnificat secundi toni--
This setting for the Lamentations is the only surviving one of Brumel's, low and slow harmonic movement that is very sombre, perfect for the darkness that grows throughout the liturgy of Holy Week leading up to Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The second tone Magnificat is very close to the style of the 12-part mass, with chant in the top part. It is an interesting departure from typical compositions of the time.

--Liner Notes--
Being internationally acclaimed, the Tallis Scholars' CDs typically present their commentary and texts in English, French, German and Italian (together with any Latin texts); that is true of this disc. The cover art also typically represents visual arts contemporary with the compositions - here there are two panels from `The Last Judgement' by Rogier van der Weyden, an artist of the generation prior to Brumel

--The Tallis Scholars--
The Tallis Scholars, a favourite group of mine since the first time I heard them decades ago, are a group dedicated to the performance and preservation of the best of this type of music. A choral group of exceptional ability, I have been privileged to see them many times in public, and at almost every performance, their singing seems almost like a spiritual epiphany for me, one that defies explanation in words. Directed by Peter Phillips, the group consists of a small number of male and female singers who have trained themselves well to their task.

Their recordings are of a consistent quality that deserve more than five stars; this particular disc of pieces by Brumel is worthy of a place on the shelf of anyone who loves choral music, liturgical music or Gregorian chant, classical music generally, or religious music. It is remarkable, both in composition and performance. The original recording was made in 1992 in the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Salle, Norfolk, one of their favourite recording sites.

The Best Recorded Performance...
... of one of the greatest musical wonders of all time! I've had this recording since 1992, as well as the competing performances by the Huelgas Ensemble and by Dominique Visse, but I've suffered seismic trepidation whenever I've tried to review it. And then I listened to it today, and felt I had to proclaim its brilliance once and for all.

The Missa Et ecce terrae motus is constructed on a portion of the antiphon for lauds on Easter, which uses the text from the Gospel of Luke that describes how the earth was shaken at the moment of Christ's death. It's obvious that Antoine Brumel (1460-c.1520) intended a musical 'depiction' of an earthquake, and of a sublime moment of eschatological potency. The music is monumental and stately, yet at the same time agitated , with musical motifs scattering like birds above the long-note canonic tenors, an apt portrayal of deep-moving tectonic blocks. This is a true 12-voice composition, not a polychoral work for two or three choruses singing in response to each other. Rather, the voices group in shifting ensembles according to range, the trebles singing as one contrapuntal choir, and altos another, and so forth, and then the six upper voices coalescing as if singing a motet a sei voci, followed by the six lower voices singing a similar passage, and then the passages overlapping each other. There's no way anyone short of a musical prodigy can hear all the complexities of this composition in one listening session... perhaps not even in ten sessions, untill you begin to 'assemble' the piece in your musical memory. Reading through the score would be a major aide, if you can find a copy; that way you'll see just how artfully Brumel has distributed his phrases to create such an unsettling sense of movement. Voices rise and fall, slide over each other, topple, clamber back, seem to shift from shrieks of horror to exclamations of exaltation in musical micro-moments.

I'm not always impressed with Peter Phillips's conducting, but on this CD he's got most things right, and I think it's purely by musical instinct rather than scholarship. His tempi are brisker than either of the other recordings, and a sense of accelerating excitement is the result. The Tallis Scholars are two on a part for this performance --and I KNOW that one on a part would be better, more dramatic, transparent rather than solemnly resonant -- but they sing with supreme discipline and precision. Both of the other recordings are muddy and top-heavy by comparison, even though Dominique Visse uses trombones in place of voices on some lines.

This interpretation is perhaps as well-done as possible on a recording, though it isn't quite a match for a live performance. Spatial relationship between the 12-voices add another dimension to the tussle between chaos and divine might. I would stage the piece with the twelve singers standing in a shallow arc, a least three feet apart; I might even have them lean forward or raise their faces as they sing passages. When you listen to this CD on your home system, I urge you to tinker with your EQ and your stereo separation, to replicate as much as possible of the spatial flux of the music.

This is a composition everyone has to hear sometime in her/his musical life. Let's call it the Bruno MUST BUY for June, 2009.