Cori spezzati - Venetian Polychoral Music / Matt, et al

What you get on this disc isn't exactly what's advertised on the outside of the package, at least as the words "Venetian Polychoral Music" are usually understood. But the contents are intriguing nonetheless. Given the maxim that architecture is frozen music, someone once wondered whether music might be considered melted architecture. The formulation would actually work pretty well for the music of Venice in the sixteenth century, where the multiple recesses of St. Mark's cathedral gave birth to a new style that pointed toward the contrast principle of the Baroque and has delighted the stereophiles of our own time. Composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli wrote music that divided the main choir into several groups and exploited the call-and-answer effects thus made possible. Some of this "polychoral" music is heard here, performed generally well by the youthful Chamber Choir of Europe (there are a few intonational slips, but nothing serious). Germany's Speyer Cathedral is a convincing stand-in for St. Mark's. But the disc goes beyond the expected exploration of this style. The group tries to show that the Italian madrigal shows the influence of this polychoral tradition and backs up its contention with madrigals, sung by smaller groups, that contain antiphonal effects. The performances of the madrigals are quite enthusiastic and lyrical, and it's hard to think of another release that juxtaposes these two repertories in this way. A key figure from earlier in the century, represented here by the lovely madrigal O bene mio, is the Netherlander Adrian Willaert (say vill-AH-ert), who became music director at St. Mark's. The idea of polychoral influence on the madrigal is probably pushed too hard here, for there were other factors, the ideal of text expression being the most important, leading madrigal composers in the direction of more variegated textures. The madrigal also served fundamentally different functions from those of the sacred motet and mass. English-speaking listeners will be unable to make up their own minds on the relative importance of the texts here, for they are given only in Italian and German. Bizarrely, the booklet notes are in English only. And, lest anyone think that these moves were necessitated by cost-cutting, six pages of color booklet space are given over to marketing blather about the wonders of SACD audio. This is a pleasant disc that collects some Italian Renaissance music in an interesting way. Here's hoping that other choirs, working with labels less dominated by bean-counters, will launch comparable projects.