Nicholas Kenyon 

Cabanilles: Complete Vocal Music review – quirky harmonies and lively rhythms

The Amystis choir provides fervently committed readings of 17th-century choral works by a Spanish composer better known for his feisty organ music, writes Nicholas Kenyon
  
  


Joan Baptista Cabanilles was a choirboy and then organist at Valencia Cathedral in the 17th century, and is known to musical history for his feisty organ music. But the quite recent discovery of a body of vocal music is fascinating, and these two discs contain a Mass, an incomplete Magnificat and attractive popular settings in honour of the Blessed Sacrament. There are some quirky harmonies (and at least one that's unbelievable, perhaps a mistranscription), and lively rhythms from the chamber choir Amystis under conductor José Duce Chenoll. One over-intense soprano and a too prominent organ continuo, but fervently committed readings.

 

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