Composer: Frank Martin, Ildebrando Pizzetti
Performer: Westminster Cathedral Choir
Conductor: James O’Donnell
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Hyperion
Catalogue: CDA67017
Release: 1998
Size: 261 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Martin: Mass for Double Choir
01. I. Kyrie
02. II. Gloria
03. III. Credo
04. IV. Sanctus
05. V. Agnus Dei
06. Martin: Passacaille
Pizzetti: Messa di Requiem
07. I. Requiem aeternam
08. II. Dies irae
09. III. Sanctus
10. IV. Agnus Dei
11. V. Libera me
12. Pizzetti: De profundis
‘One of the greatest a cappella works written this century’; so writes Gramophone’s Marc Rochester in the sleeve note to this recording, and this is no exaggeration. Written in 1922, with a devastatingly effective Agnus Dei being added in 1926, Frank Martin’s Mass for double choir is a truly wonderful work, combining intensely personal moments of religious contemplation with outbursts of overwhelming glory. Pizzetti’s Messa di Requiem, also composed in 1922, is a work firmly steeped in the Gregorian tradition, Pizzetti weaving an intriguing twentieth-century web over the familiar tunes. Also included on this recording are Martin’s Passacaille, the composer’s only work for solo organ, and Pizzetti’s De profundis, dedicated by way of apology to a colleague on whom Pizzetti had previously vented his infamous foul temper.