Naxos
2007
Various Composers
Pierre De La Rue: The Complete Magnificats; Three Salve Reginas
About This Album
The shadow cast by Josquin des Pres over the early Renaissance period is so all encompassing that it's easy to miss the fantastic, and musically very different, achievements of his contemporaries. One of them is Dutch composer Pierre de la Rue, whose remarkable music is a blend of both established techniques drawing from medieval practice in elaborating chant and then-new techniques of part-writing and imitation devices. Naxos' Pierre de la Rue: The Complete Magnificats; Three Salve Reginas featuring a cappella vocal group VivaVoce under the direction of Peter Schubert, is a major contribution to de la Rue's recorded canon, covering a major subset of his work -- his eight settings of the Magnificat -- in its entirety, along with three of his Salve Reginas. Hitherto the parts of de la Rue's output that have received the most attention are his settings of the mass -- of which there are more than 30 -- and his secular chansons.

Recorded at the L'Eglise de la Visitation, which is the oldest standing church in Montréal, the sound -- so important in Renaissance vocal music -- is very good, a little distant but not too far away, with just enough natural reverberation to provide a sense of space and take the edge off the voices.
Track List

Disc 1

Pierre de la Rue Sancta Maria Succurre Miseris, Antiphon
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Gregorian Chant Tribus Miraculis, Antiphon In Mode 1
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
Pierre de la Rue Salve Regina No. 5
15.
16.
17.
18.
Dedit Mihi Dominus Pennas, Antiphon
19.
Magnificat (Tone 7)
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
Virgo Gloriosa, Antiphon
26.
Magnificat (Tone 2)
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.

Disc 2

Salve Regina No. 2
1.
2.
3.
O Quam Gloriosum Est Regnum, Antiphon
4.
Magnificat (Tone 6)
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Dum Medium Silentium, Antiphon
11.
Magnificat (Tone 8)
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Salve Regina No. 4
18.
19.
20.
21.
Bene Omnia Fecit, Antiphon
22.
Magnificat (Tone 5)
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.