After a rather sluggish, unfocused beginning, this fine chorus gradually–and I emphasize the word “gradually”–regroups and by the middle of the Gloria of the Mass is sounding more like a well-rehearsed, musically involved ensemble. The performance of this beautiful but rarely-recorded four-voice mass (one of Monteverdi’s three existing works in this genre) certainly is an improvement over an old Hungaroton recording from 1980 by the Pécs Chamber Choir–which also includes the six-voice Magnificat contained on this new disc–but can’t match Philippe Herreweghe and his La Chapelle Royale forces (Harmonia Mundi) either for performance or sound. Later in the recording–the Credo of the mass, the motet Jubilet, parts of the Magnificat–the singing shows even better form and style and you realize how comfortable you’ve gradually become. The end of the Credo is firm and strong and quite lovely, as is the performance by soprano soloists Lia Serafini and Cristina Nadal in the motet. You’ll even be impressed by organist Roberto Loreggian in his artful and florid reading of Andrea Gabrieli’s Ricercare arioso. Given the dearth of recordings of this repertoire, I suppose this makes an acceptable choice for now–if you must have these particular works; but you’ll have to decide if just being “comfortable” is all you need. The sound, while adequate, suffers a bit from the very resonant venue–which happens to be the abbey to which the (posthumous) edition of Monteverdi’s works containing this mass was dedicated. In all, the engineers give us a convincing sense of the very live space, which comes at the expense of detail in the full ensemble sections–and someone forgot to eliminate that distracting electronic thumping near the beginning of the Credo.
