Briefly Noted

This is the first recording by Boston's Blue Heron Renaissance Choir, a fourteen-voice ensemble that formed in 1999 under the directorship of Scott Metcalfe and specializes in music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Du Fay is no less fine a choice for being an obvious one, and if eight years seems like a long time for a choir to wait before producing a debut recording, on the evidence it seems clear that the group's preparation time was well invested. It has a rich and finely-grained ensemble sound, one that leaves individual voices distinguishable without sacrificing tonal consistency; it should be noted, in this regard, that the various pieces in the program feature a varying array of smallish subsets of the full choir. Metcalfe is to be credited for his sensitivity to the different purposes and moods of the pieces featured here; while the chanson J'atendray tant qu'il vous playra is sung with a suitably sprightly and emotionally intense passion, the poly-choral Sanctus Ave verum corpus, with its more astringent harmonies, is delivered with an almost hushed sense of devotional wonder, and the odd Flos florum (in which a sacred text is placed in a chanson setting) is sung in a straight, rather restrained manner that brings out the composition's archaic harmonic flavors while nicely showcasing the performers' improvised ornamentations. Flaws are difficult to find on this very fine recording, though the plain-chant introduction to Ave maris stella is perhaps a little bit ragged. That seems to be the worst thing one could say about this collection, which is high praise indeed.

Johann Pachelbel. Christ lag in Todesbanden. Choeur de Chambre de Namur; Les Agrémens; David Van Bouwel / Jean Tubéry. Ricercar RIC 255 1067-2, 2007.

It should probably come as no surprise that the tercentenary of Pachelbel's death in 2006 was largely ignored by the general public, since he is remembered by most (if at all) only for a very minor if surpassingly popular work, the Canon in D Major. Less excusable is the failure of much of the classical music world to draw adequate attention to this milestone, though to some degree that failure may simply reflect the dire new economics of the recording industry. What all of this means is that new recordings of Pachelbel's more substantial compositions are always both needed and welcome, and this exuberant performance of two motets, three sacred cantatas, and two organ toccatas by the wonderful Choeur de Chambre de Namur and the Agrémens ensemble (also based in Namur), with organ soloist David Van Bouwel, is a delight. Energy alone is never enough to make a recording worthwhile, but on the present disc there is such a felicitous blend of verve, virtuosity, and audible joie de chanter that the whole enterprise seems to be imbued with light. On the relatively somber title composition, the ensemble's passion is sublimated as devotional intensity and thus more transmuted than muted. Of particular note are the gorgeous tenor aria "So jauchze, wer da kann" (from the cantata Jauchzet dem Herrn) sung by Philippe...