The sacred music on this disc -- settings of texts for Holy Week, from the early seventeenth century and influenced by the new monodic style -- has long been less familiar than the fiery secular music of the era. One may admire this recording by Argentine-born Baroque specialist Maria Cristina Kiehr and still understand why that is: the composers included here, several of them very famous names, offer a rather scaled-down version of operatic monody to fulfill the requirements of church music, even when it came to the ...
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The sacred music on this disc -- settings of texts for Holy Week, from the early seventeenth century and influenced by the new monodic style -- has long been less familiar than the fiery secular music of the era. One may admire this recording by Argentine-born Baroque specialist Maria Cristina Kiehr and still understand why that is: the composers included here, several of them very famous names, offer a rather scaled-down version of operatic monody to fulfill the requirements of church music, even when it came to the profound Lamentations of Easter week. The holy Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mentioned (in French) in the tracklist are actually, if you were wondering, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; apparently there was a tradition of designating such works, which were sung at Matins services, with the name of the previous day. The overall sound of this recording has a shimmering, slightly diffuse quality, with the basic sound laid down by the triple plucked strings of the continuo group (harp,...
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