The City Musick - Missa Tu Es Petrus - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

I Fagiolini continues it's rediscovery of multi-choir masses from mid-17th-century Rome by maestro and 'fixer' Orazio Benevoli. The four-choir work on this new recording, 'Missa Benevola', is accentuated with even more instrumental colour to allow the ear to appreciate the dance between the four separated ensembles. Enjoy the famous 'mule' technique that Handel noted 50 years later and then re-used in Messiah.Alongside this, Carissimi's well-known Jephte transposed to the lower pitch at use in Rome at the time, injecting a more profound colour into both individual voices and it's famously plangent final chorus. All the Masses in I Fagiolini's Benevoli series are premiere recordings.

The Cremonese composer Marc'Antonio Ingegneri (c. 1535/36-92) is chiefly remembered as the teacher of Claudio Monteverdi while, for well nigh 500 years, his own achievements were left to sit in the shadows. This second in a series of pioneering recordings from the Choir of Girton College, Cambridge, reveals Ingegneri to have been one of the masters of his age, writing music of breathtaking richness and beauty the works heard here combine learned, intricate counterpoint with the kind of sheer sonic thrill that brings a shiver of physical excitement. It is, of course, religious music, but it is also extraordinarily passionate, to a degree not previously heard, nor for centuries to come, until the rise of the great Romantic choral works.

It had taken almost 60 years when the church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Dachau got an organ, in 2015, which was appropriate to the size and sound of the large and unusual church interior. The church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was built in 1954-1956 in the new district of Dachau-Sud which sprung up after the Second World War. With it's fully preserved features, it is considered to be an important testament to the architecture of the 1950s. In 2001, the parish decided to have a new organ built after it had become clear that the 1959 Staller Organ was not repairable any more. The new organ, tonally and architecturally designed specifically for the space and, with 41 registers on three manuals and pedal, generously dimensioned, was ceremoniously inaugurated on October 25, 2015. Tonally, the new instrument is designed for balance and the greatest possible authenticity; despite a disposition which, at first glance, appears rather unspectacular, almost Inchuniversal, Inch the Kaps organ can bring the vast majority of the rich organ repertoire to life very convincingly. A living proof that is the album at hand- the first recording at the new organ which contains a very versatile repertoire from Baroque to 20th-century pieces, containing both German and French works.