LAMENTATIONS FOR HOLY WEEK

 

Carissimi, Frescobaldi, Marcorelli, Palestrina, Anon +Toccatas by Rossi, Kapsberger, Anon

 

Maria Cristina Kiehr (soprano)

Concerto Soave / Jean-Marc Aymes

 

Music-lovers are by now familiar with the Tenebrae Lessons, the settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah sung throughout Catholic Europe on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings of Holy Week. The Renaissance had delighted in them, and France under Louis XIV was to cultivate the genre to excess. In Italy, the fashion for Lamentazioni belongs to the first half of the 17th century, as witnessed by the 23 cycles of manuscript Q43 of the Museo musicale in Bologna, all by composers active in Rome at the time. Maria Cristina Kiehr and Concerto Soave revive the pleasures of absolute contrition to be had from singing words such as afflictatio, dolor and lamentatio . . .

 

"Maria Cristina Kiehr kept this reviewer attending raptly... Think of a glowing filament, only in sound; the beautiful thinness of Hesperion XX's lead singer Monserrat Figueras's voice, only larger and sweeter. Some singer."

Boston Globe

 

Harmonia Mundi HMC901952