When I first listened to this recording, I immediately sensed that we were dealing with a real treasure. Not only for the devoted admirers of The Tallis Scholars, but equally for lovers of beautiful polyphony and in particular for fans of Claudio Monteverdi. The occasion for this concert in the famous San Marco in Venice on 14 July 2017 was no small one: the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi's birth. And honestly, who doesn't dream of sitting in the pews in that place so sacred to music? I can picture the audience on location listening breathlessly beneath the imposing vaults.
That the ten singers of Peter Phillips possess a rare class hardly needs argument. Because it was a purely vocal evening, the ensemble focused almost exclusively on the prima pratica of Monteverdi's oeuvre. Take the splendid Messa a quattro voci da cappella: with that magnificent Kyrie, where the tempo and tension are repeatedly heightened. And further on the mighty Cantate Domino, in which the voices meander through the space with apparent ease and precision. At no point do you get the feeling that there is too much or too little; there is simply no flaw to be noted in the singing. Top-level vocal craftsmanship.
What makes the evening and this CD truly engaging, however, is the way Phillips has interwoven the music of other masters around Monteverdi. We hear the light, floating polyphony of Palestrina, and of course the Miserere by Allegri – a work The Tallis Scholars know like the back of their hand. Lotti provides the necessary tension with his varied, grating and dissonant Crucifixi.
But the real surprise lies in the leap to more contemporary sounds. Alongside the icily beautiful, purified simplicity of Arvo Pärt, the ensemble made room for the music of Komitas. This Armenian master was a discovery for me within this programme, and I suspect many listeners of this album will share that experience. Both Surp-Surp and Sirt im sasani cut through the space and, together with Pärt, give the whole an unexpected, deeply spiritual dimension in lovely contrast with the Italian masters.
On this recording The Tallis Scholars once again show themselves to be the absolute masters of the genre. It is a performance in which the acoustics of San Marco are used as a full-fledged instrument. A splendid document of a memorable evening, which you can moreover also watch via the Blu-ray recording.
