Music for Milan Cathedral
Werrecore – Josquin – Gaffurius – Weerbeke
Helena Thomson, Francis Gush, Paul Bentley-Angell, Christine Buras, David Le Prevost, Rebekah Jones, Ben McKee, Ben Rowarth, Hannah Ely, Chris Fitzgerald-Lombard, Siglo de Oro, Patrick Allies
The 13 youthful voices of Siglo de Oro produce a fresh, ingenuous sound. Their timbre is open and expressive – the use of vibrato adding a tremulous urgency to some of the more emotive passages....
Music for Milan Cathedral
Werrecore – Josquin – Gaffurius – Weerbeke
Helena Thomson, Francis Gush, Paul Bentley-Angell, Christine Buras, David Le Prevost, Rebekah Jones, Ben McKee, Ben Rowarth, Hannah Ely, Chris Fitzgerald-Lombard, Siglo de Oro, Patrick Allies
Purchase product
The 13 youthful voices of Siglo de Oro produce a fresh, ingenuous sound. Their timbre is open and expressive – the use of vibrato adding a tremulous urgency to some of the more emotive passages....
About
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Milan Cathedral acted as a magnet to many of the finest composers of the time. Yet the Cathedral's maestro di cappella for almost thirty years, Hermann Matthias Werrecore, is almost completely unknown to us today.
Why was he forgotten? Did his Flemish origins mean he was never properly adopted by his Milanese congregation? Did his later reputation suffer from confusion with his countryman Matthias Le Maistre?
Six of Werrecore's surviving motets are presented here the first time any of his sacred music has been recorded. They are heard alongside works by composers Werrecore knew, drawn mostly from the holdings of the Milan library during his tenure there. Siglo de Oro's act of rediscovery reveals the exceptional quality of the music, and Patrick Allies directs them in performances of extraordinary flair.
Contents and tracklist
- Helena Thomson, Francis Gush, Paul Bentley-Angell
- Siglo de Oro
- Patrick Allies
- Christine Buras, Francis Gush, David Le Prevost, Rebekah Jones, Paul Bentley-Angell, Ben McKee
- Siglo de Oro
- Patrick Allies
- Christine Buras, Rebekah Jones, Paul Bentley-Angell, Ben Rowarth, Hannah Ely, Chris Fitzgerald-Lombard
- Siglo de Oro
- Patrick Allies
Awards and reviews
March 2020
The 13 youthful voices of Siglo de Oro produce a fresh, ingenuous sound. Their timbre is open and expressive – the use of vibrato adding a tremulous urgency to some of the more emotive passages. The young singers respond sensitively to the musical and liturgical range of this programme…Allies shapes the architecture of the large-scale musical edifices with admirable control.
Plumbing deep wells of spiritual devotion, this music meets its match in poised, committed performances of simultaneous unanimity and character … Six elegant masterly, creatively scored motets by Hermann Werrecore appear in their world premier recordings as the rarest delicacies in a flavoursome menu of works from the maestri of 16th-century Milan.
February 2020
The smooth, honeyed sound of Siglo de Oro is largely due to the soft and clear sheen of their radiant sopranos. As an ensemble they resemble The Cardinall’s Musick both in tone and in their approach to the architecture of larger-scale motets...To portray effectively such ranges of polyphonic textures is really exciting: this is a hugely impressive disc in both programming and performance.
