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Reviewer: Fabrice Fitch The Prophetiae Sibyllarum have had several outings on disc, mostly with mixed, medium-sized choirs (Daedalus, Vocalconsort Berlin, Brabant Ensemble). This new account offers another option, one voice on a part and adult male voices (already represented in the catalogue by The Hilliard Ensemble). Gallicantus’s superb account of the composer’s swansong, the Lagrime di San Pietro (12/13), already marked them out as distinguished interpreters of Lassus. They are lighter on their feet than The Hilliards, helped along by a dry rather than a church acoustic. Remembering their Lagrime set, perhaps, they make greater play with the beat than most other readings (try the nicely judged slowdown towards the end of ‘Sibylla Cimmeria’), though the sinuosity of Lassus’s lines is such that they might have done still more. Still, this warrants a top recommendation, for Gallicantus surpass the mixed ensembles technically and edge The Hilliards’ more reverential account interpretatively. A difficulty with programming the Prophetiae work is deciding what to put alongside it. (The Hilliards paired it with Lassus’s four-voice Requiem, an uncomfortable choice that drew attention to the lack of interpretative contrast between the two.) Gallicantus have taken the bolder decision to commission companion works, here a set of prophecies by the American composer Dmitri Tymoczko (b1969) setting texts by Jeff Dolden. There are a few nods to Lassus but in general Tymoczko follows his own path, with reminiscences here and there of Ligeti’s Nonsense Madrigals (echoing perhaps the obsessively numerical, statistical bent of the texts). His settings are a sympathetic foil to Lassus on the whole, steering clear of the ‘holy minimalist’ tendency towards which early vocal consorts so often gravitate in similar commissions. The short, whimsical piece by Elliott Cole brings an intriguing project to a close. |
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