Harmonia Mundi: Stile Antico — Victoria: Tenebrae Responsories CD

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Product Details:

• UPC: 3149020227220
• Catalog Number: HMM 902272
• Product Type: Audio CD
• Brand / Label: Harmonia Mundi
• Composer: Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548–1611)
• Performers: Stile Antico (vocal ensemble)
• Release Year: 2018
• Genre: Classical / Renaissance sacred / Choral

Product Features

• Format: CD (digipak)
• Discs: 1
• Total time: 71:21
• Work: Tenebrae Responsories, from Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae
• Booklet: texts in French / with English notes
• Condition: New, factory sealed
• Made in the EU (LC 7045)

Overview

Some of the most affecting music of the entire Renaissance, sung by the ensemble that has become its definitive modern voice. Stile Antico — the conductorless, one-voice-per-part British group — turns to Tomás Luis de Victoria's Tenebrae Responsories, the towering settings written for the darkened Holy Week liturgy.

Victoria composed nothing but sacred music, and these responsories are widely held to be his masterpiece. Written for the Tenebrae office, when candles are extinguished one by one until the chapel falls into darkness, they trace the Passion with an intensity that has fascinated listeners for four centuries. The harmonies tighten, the dissonances ache, and the silence between phrases carries as much weight as the notes.

Stile Antico's approach is unusually intimate: twelve singers, no conductor, each line clearly heard within the whole. The result is music of unparalleled expressive power that amply justifies Victoria's reputation as the greatest polyphonist of the Spanish Renaissance. A beautifully produced Harmonia Mundi digipak, brand new and still sealed.

Interesting Facts

• Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548–1611) is regarded as the greatest composer of the Spanish Renaissance and one of the supreme masters of sacred polyphony, ranked alongside Palestrina and Lassus.
• The Tenebrae Responsories were first published in 1585 as part of his Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae (Office for Holy Week).
• The Tenebrae service takes its name from the Latin for "darkness," as candles are gradually extinguished during the liturgy, leaving the chapel in shadow.
• Stile Antico performs without a conductor, shaping interpretation collectively — an approach modeled on how Renaissance singers themselves would have worked.
• Victoria spent decades in Rome, absorbing the influences that shaped his deeply expressive, distinctly Spanish sacred style before returning to Spain.
• Stile Antico's Harmonia Mundi recordings have earned multiple Gramophone Awards and Grammy nominations, making them among the most acclaimed early-music groups of their generation.

Track Listing

Tenebrae Responsories (from Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae), complete — total time 71:21. Performed by Stile Antico:

• Sopranos: Helen Ashby, Kate Ashby, Rebecca Hickey
• Altos: Emma Ashby, Eleanor Harries, Katie Schofield
• Tenors: Ross Buddie, Andrew Griffiths, Thomas Kelly
• Basses: Will Dawes, Thomas Flint, Matthew O'Donovan

Publishers

Harmonia Mundi musique s.a.s., Médiapôle Saint-Césaire, Arles. ℗ 2018. Made in the EU.

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