BRUCKNER; GESUALDO Motets

BRUCKNER & GESUALDO
MONTEVERDI CHOIR / JONATHAN SELLS
(SDG736)

They're back, thank goodness; I've been missing The Monteverdi Choir of late. This is their first release on SDG since the pandemic and it feels like a long gap considering their previous appetite for releasing new albums. More importantly, I'm pleased to report this first recording with Jonathan Sells is brilliant. Good news all round.

Marking both the Monteverdi Choir’s 60th birthday and also the 200th anniversary of Bruckner’s birth, Bruckner's exquisite motets are intertwined with works by Gesualdo, not two names I would put together readily, but both benefit from the union and remind us that that this is a choir that sings music from renaissance to romantic equally well. And it’s an intriguing programme, invoking themes of choral revivals and historical concerts in the 19th century. The Cecillian movement also looms large over this disc, but I wonder if allegiance to the stile antico ever sounded so graceful and so fluent in the 19th century? Opening with Palestrina’s Stabat Mater in Wagner’s edition is also a timely nod to the 500th anniversary year for ‘The Prince of Music’. Prepared for an 1848 historical concert in Dresden, I find Wagner's score fascinating as it is loaded with dynamic markings to the point of clutter, but in this (debut?) recording I note with delight how The Monteverdi Choir keep a sense of momentum that belies the sheer volume of expressive instructions that confront them.Bogged down, they are not. The solo choir are particularly fine and perform Wagner's more quirky moments with relish, such as the emphatic separation of 'Mater unigenti.' I’m pleased that this much-discussed historical document is now captured in sound, and in this case it’s all the more powerful and communicative for being a live recording. [...]


To read the full text of this review please visit: Gramophone.co.uk (May 2025)