KEY POINTS:
It was Wagner who singled out Bach's motet Singet dem Herrn for "the lyrical thrust of its rhythmic melody surging through a sea of undulating harmonies".
The man who gave us Valkyries flying through the heavens and who, chord by chord, captured the grandeur of Valhalla, was clearly
smitten by the architectonic magnificence of Bach's great work.
A splendid recording of Bach's Motets by the Hilliard Ensemble lays out these superb pieces in all their glory.
The opening Singet dem Herrn positively dances its way around the eight finely-focused voices of the chamber choir. Towards the other end of the disc, word by word, Komm Jesu Komm steals upon our consciousness. Many of these motets have funereal associations - we are told that the wings of the Holy Ghost can be heard to flutter in the opening pages of Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf.
Calming chorales punctuate winding fugal choruses and more forthright passages in which solo voices pass across and through insistent chords. Clustering sounds conspire to create the noblest of structures.
Two shorter works may or may not be by Bach. One, a setting of Psalm 117, floats on top of the sweetest of organ continuos and ends with a dash of Alleluia. The other astonishes with a lilting chorus, dispensed alla siciliana.
A new disc by the English Early Music group, I Fagiolini, is a graceful initiation into the world of Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643).
Its title, Flaming Heart promises an emotional ride and the scene is perfectly set with that moving prologue from the opera Orfeo. "I am Music, who in sweet accents can calm every troubled heart," Clare Wilkinson sings. "And now with noble anger, now with love, can inflame the most frozen minds."
Robert Hollingworth and his musicians fling back the casements on elegant and often daring music, deliciously savoured madrigals biased towards lovelorn and languishing spirits. Only in Volgendo il ciel does Nicholas Mulroy's tenor tempt us to a merry dance.
Here was a composer praised by Stravinsky as "amazingly modern and, if one can say such a thing, near to me in spirit". This CD offers prima facie evidence.
Bach, Motetten (ECM 1875, through Ode Records)
Monteverdi, Flaming Heart (Chandos CHAN 0730, Ode Records)