スーパーサイズ・ポリフォニー ～ ストリッジョ: 40声&60声のミサ曲、タリス: 40声のモテット

タリス&ストリッジョ!
超多声部によるポリフォニー!

驚異的なレパートリーの広さと安定感のあるハーモニーが魅力のケンブリッジ・ゴンヴィル&キーズ・カレッジ合唱団。小編成から大編成、合唱のみ、オーケストラ付きなど、多種多様な編成とプログラムにハイレベルで対応する2001年創設の合唱団、アルモニコ・コンソート。英国が誇る2つの名アンサンブルが集まり、40声と60声という超多声部のためのポリフォニー音楽をレコーディング!「スーパーサイズ」なポリフォニーの代表作として知られるトマス・タリスの傑作、40声のモテット「御身よりほかにわれは(スペム・イン・アリウム)」はもちろん、約400年間消失しており現代になってパリで発見されたアレッサンドロ・ストリッジョの40声&60声のミサ曲「かくも幸せな日が」を中心に、同じくストリッジョの40声のモテット「見よ,至福の光を」、そしてヒルデガルト・フォン・ビンゲンの美しい作品を散りばめた充実のプログラム。数多の声部が緻密に絡み合い壮麗なポリフォニーを織りなす、16世紀の偉大な合唱芸術です。
東京エムプラス

The title Supersize Polyphony here may seem an unwarranted intrusion of advertising-speak into the rarefied realm of Renaissance choral music, but it's apt enough. The 40-part motet Spem in alium by Thomas Tallis has always been something of a mystery among Renaissance compositions, seemingly unlike anything else in the repertory of the period. It became slightly less of a mystery when choirs learned of its likely derivation from a motet and mass by composer Alessandro Striggio, which expands to an even more mind-boggling 60 voices in the Agnus Dei of the mass. The two works have been combined on recordings several times, but there are several new wrinkles here. One is the inclusion of chants by Hildegard of Bingen, completely ahistorical as a performance practice, but quite effective as a total contrast with the choral work. The second is the remarkable engineering from Signum. The performances by the blended ensemble of the Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, under Geoffrey Weber, and Armonico Consort under Christopher Monks, are clean and elegant, remarkably so in view of the mixed nature of the ensemble. The separation of the polyphonic lines in the big choral pieces may be unprecedented. Sample the Agnus Dei of the Striggio Missa sopra Ecco si Beato Giorno, in 60 voices, and you never get the usual feeling of hearing a wall of sound. To judge from the booklet, the singers did not perform in the round as they have sometimes done with these pieces. Instead, the engineers seem to have done their homework extraordinarily well at St George's Church, Cambridge (not the college chapel where the choir usually performs). At any rate, these are sonically definitive performances of these famous, freakish works.