Bruckner – Mass in E minor & Motets
Polyphony
Britten Sinfonia
Stephen Layton
The Sunday Times
The Observer
Bruckner lovers will be familiar with his motets, but may not know his glorious Mass No 2, which shares their daring modulations and sensual chromatic harmonies. Stephen Layton and Polyphony really understand this music and perform here with a calm confidence that can be lacking in others recordings of Bruckner's often-perilous choral writing. As a bonus, the spacious acoustic of Ely Cathedral adds an authentic lustre to their wonderfully rich and rewarding sound.
Stephen Pritchard
Audiofile
This recording done in the resonant acoustic of Ely Cathedral has much to
recommend it. Polyphony is one of the finest ensembles of its type, now
about 20 years on the scene, and Stephen Layton needs no introduction to
choral aficionados. There are a number of recordings of this mass on the
market, as it is unusual in that it alone of Bruckner's canonical three
uses only wind instruments as accompaniment. This gives a very medieval,
cool sound to the work no matter how it is performed.
One of the classic readings is that of Eugene Jochum with his Bavarian Radio forces, recorded in the early sixties and seventies. Those beautiful accounts are still available in a DGG Originals two-disc set that remains mandatory for any serious collection, though the sound is a little thin now in some spots (DGG sound is almost always thin from those days), but it does have a more red-blooded, Germanic feel to it that surely Bruckner would appreciate. I also find this same sort of sentiment on the more modern, and superbly recorded reading by Frieder Bernius, the Deutsche Blaserphilharmonie, and Kammerchor Stuttgart on Sony (1992, and great sound). But Layton offers an even cooler sound, sparse and ascetic though by no means unemotional, and perhaps closer to Bruckner's ideal than his actual experience gave him. The singing cannot be bettered, and Hyperion long ago learned how to temper those cold and nasty Middle Ages English cathedrals.
This recording comes generously coupled with seven of the composer's motets, including the first real masterpiece, the Ave Maria of 1861, and going up to the Vexilla Regis of 1892, only four years before his death. A lot of people sit happily with their recordings of the forth, seventh, and ninth symphonies, ignoring the others and blissfully unaware of the choral music. This certainly puts one on the fast track to completely misunderstanding the work of the composer as a whole, as these choral pieces and masses are essential to gain a complete picture of the man's work and its meaning.
So this is an excellent reading, not topping the two I mentioned, but easily taking its place among them.
Steven Ritter
The Daily Telegraph
With its refracted echoes of Palestrina, Bruckner's E minor Mass for choir
and wind band stands as a sublime anachronism in a worldly, sceptical age.
Recorded in the sumptuous acoustics of Ely Cathedral, Polyphony and the
Britten Sinfonia catch the music's starkness, exaltation and mysticism as
movingly as I have heard. This is a searching performance, with soft
singing of awed intensity, but also an unusually dramatic one. Stephen
Layton never allows Bruckner's music, even at its most unearthly, to
become becalmed; and he builds climaxes of molten intensity in, say, the
Sanctus, or the fervent motet Christus factus est. A glorious disc of
music that strives for, and ultimately attains, a state of transcendent
peace.
Richard Wigmore
Bay Area Reporter
Hyperion is on a roll. Its superb new CD of Anton Bruckner's choral music, with the chorus Polyphony under the direction of Stephen Layton, includes both a mass, the second in E minor, and seven of the composer's motets. Here there's no overt attempt to say which form of music is superior, though again the motets for unaccompanied choir do seem to win out.
Bruckner scored the E-minor Mass for chorus and wind band instead of conventional orchestra with stings, and the Britten Sinfonia joins Polyphony for a compelling reading. It climaxes in a glowing Agnus Dei whose dense chromaticism brings the music to a lofty conclusion.
But the motet "Christus factus est," which immediately follows the mass and continues its musical explorations, leaves no doubt where the substance of this CD lies. Recorded in the resplendent but not over-resonant acoustics of Britain's Ely Cathedral, the choristers unleash a sound of staggering richness and power. That said, it's the energized little silences Layton enforces between phrases that, often as not, send them vaulting across the music's interior spaces. This is trenchant singing that frequently knocks the wind out of you. From the floating "Ave Maria" that opens the CD to the aching simplicity of the "Pange lingua" that ends it, it sweeps you away.
American Record Guide
I’ve had nothing but good things to say about Polyphony in works by Rutter, Whitacre, and maybe a few others. Still, I wasn’t prepared for the excellence of this program. Bruckner, of course, is grandly symphonic even when he’s not writing symphonies; and his motets and masses are no exception. Polyphony, you’ll recall, is a co-ed British chamber choir, with accents on both “British” (clarity above all; bright, white soprano tone) and “chamber” (intimate in scale all the way). How do these attributes mix with some of the most expansive writing in the sacred choral canon? The answer is, very well indeed. The musicianship is so sophisticated, so meticulous that it’s impossible not to get swept up in what the singers are doing.
The Sanctus of the Mass is spun out like 19th Century Thomas Tallis, with the English vocal style acting as a catalyst for the success of the conductor’s approach. What really captures my attention is the spectrum of vocal colors these singers create in pianissimo range. Rarely do you hear gradations of softness so fraught with expressive possibilities. Those of us who’ve warbled through our share of ‘Virga Jesses’ and ‘Os Iustis’ over the years will marvel at what these singers accomplish in these familiar motets.
Could I imagine a darker, more massive choral sound in some spots? Yes. Can the sonorities become a bit metallic when the women hit the stratosphere? Yes, again. But I wouldn’t want to part with these. Jochum’s integral set of choral Bruckner is still the coin of the realm, but Maestro Layton’s performances inspire the soul even as they break the heart with their intense beauty.