Anamorfosi

Choral works by Monteverdi, Rossi, Mazzocchi, Abbatini, Allegri and Marazzoli

La Poème Harmonique/

Vincent Dumestre

Alpha ALPHA 438 73:10 mins Anamorphic objects are those that at first seem deformed but become recognisable when viewed ‘correctly’. This is true of many Baroque works whose bare written structures require ornamentation and improvisation, and in that sense Vincent Dumestre’s additions are not so different from many other ‘transforming’ recordings – for example Suzie Le Blanc’s aptly named Metamorfosi (Analekta, 2014). But an extra dimension here is that many of these (originally secular) pieces also survive in versions with sacred texts, and these are the ones used. We are invited to see this as reflecting a Counter-reformation ‘corrective’ process by which secular works were re-imagined as spiritual ones.

This is fine, but the temptation to give the new instrumentations a ‘churchy’ feel is problematic.

For example, the heavy organ accompaniment now assigned to Monteverdi’s Si dolce leaves the pure, lyrical vocal line rather lost in its murky surround. Such difficulties are avoided in Allegri’s Miserere whose text remains in its original Latin while its new harmonies and melodic decorations demonstrate the inventive best in the singers.

Not all of the pieces contain new embellishments. Rossi’s Un Allato Messagier remains virtually the same as its secular version, Un ferito cavaliero (Queen Christina’s lament on the death of Adolphus II of Sweden). In relation to the new text, Eva Zaïcik’s dramatic performance brings the searing religious elements brilliantly into focus, but musically she is perhaps slightly less nuanced than Suzie Le Blanc in her magical recording of the secular version from 1998 (Amor Roma, Arcade Classics). Anthony Pryer PERFORMANCE ★★★★

RECORDING ★★★