de RoreMissa Praeter rerum seriumReview

'To Josquin we owe the delectable art of song in several voices; to Mouton, the true art of contrapuntal variation, and to Willaert, the art of sweet harmonies. But to Cipriano the unique, heaven granted gift of blending all three in one'.

Cipriano was the great 16th century Flemish composer Cipriano de Rore, who spent more-or-less his entire career working in Italy. You might expect his collaborator and publisher Gardano to have nothing but praise for Rore only a year after his death in 1565; but even the great Monteverdi admired him, and praised by name two of the madrigals that appear on this new cd.

So what made Rore's music so special to his contemporaries? It seems to have been a rare combination of contrapuntal skill and expressive genius - the intellect blending seamlessly with the emotional. So why isn't he better known? Perhaps that's because recordings as good as this one are rarer than hens' teeth.

The opening item is a simple eight voice chanson... or at least it feels simple enough, until Rore unwraps cascades of suspensions, swiftly resolved discords that encapsulate the emotional upheaval of the poet in love. The main meat of the disc though is an astonishing mass setting, famous as a technical tour de force even in Rore's lifetime. It's a parody mass, based on the Christmas motet Praeter rerum seriem by Josquin...but that's not the whole story. It also manages to qualify as a cantus firmus mass, where the tenor part of every movement sings the praises of Rore's employer, by slowly unfolding a tune he'd used before with a text praising his boss. Tricky stuff - but the real miracle of this mass is that despite the technical sophistication, your nose is never rubbed in it: the music speaks clearly, emotionally and expressively.

Paul van Nevel calls the Missa Praeter rerum seriem 'perhaps the most monumental mass of the 16th century' - and performed like this by his Huelgas Ensemble, I dont feel like taking issue with him. The unaccompanied voices are crystal clear, the texture unfolds easily in front of you, and yet there's no feeling of fussiness - despite the accuracy and cleanness of the singing and the almost vibrato-less voices, never for a moment does this feel sterile. The acoustic has been captured superbly, and the way the soaring sopranos set the stonework ringing can make you catch your breath.

This is one of those rare discs it's almost impossible to criticise. Even if we're unlikely ever to see cds of Rore stacked high and sold cheap in our local non-specialist record shops, I suspect this is an important, and necessary, recording.

Enough. I must go listen to it one more time...

Like This? Try These:
Lalande: Music for the Sun King
A Venetian Christmas: Gabrieli Consort
Pergolesi: Marian Vespers