Miserere

In this recording, Miserere, the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, sings with a round tone, clear diction, and affecting sincerity, and Timothy Brown leads them in richly molded, lovingly phrased, and honestly touching performances. Brilliant's recording is clean yet evocative, with a huge dynamic range and a tangible sense of place and time. It's beautifully sung, beautifully directed, beautifully recorded and beautifully programmed, but this Renaissance choral music often calls for more beauty; it calls for total commitment, plus unreserved sympathy for the music, which is, as the title indicates, of a lamenting character. Some of the pieces here -- Josquin's Absalon fili mi, Tallis' Lamentations, Allegri's Miserere, and especially Gesualdo's O vos omnes -- are as directly moving as work of the Romantic period. All the rest, even Palestrina's mellifluous Stabat Mater, is at the very least intensely expressive. But here they are merely very, very beautiful, and beauty isn't enough.