CD ECM Records Hilliard Ensemble: Il Cor Tristo

2012

The Hilliard Ensemble :

David James - contratenor
Rogers Covey-Crump - tenor
Steven Harrold - tenor
Gordon Jones - bariton

One of the world’s finest vocal chamber groups, the Hilliard Ensemble, is unrivalled for its formidable reputation in the fields of both early and new music. The programme featured here exemplifies its distinctive style and highly developed musicianship in both repertoires. At its heart is a work commissioned by the ensemble from British contemporary composer Roger Marsh: Il Cor Tristo, a setting of cantos 32 and 33 from Dante’s Inferno, which deftly blends Renaissance techniques with a modern idiom. Marsh’s composition frames madrigals by 16th century composers Bernardo Pisano (1490-1548) and Jacques Arcadelt (c 1507-1568). As so often with the Hilliard singers, the transitions between “old” and “new” are seamless...

Nothing sums up the bold apparoach to repertoire better than this CD which mixes Italian Renaissance madrigals with Roger Marsh’s 2008 vocal work ‘Il Cor Tristo’ – setting parts of Dante’s ‘Inferno’ to austere chanted chords from which single voices break out. Grim words; haunting music; masterly performance.
Richard Morrsison, The Times

Applauded for programming old and new music in juxtaposition, The Hilliard Ensemble here explores the contrasted poetic spirits of Dante and Petrarch. The former’s nightmarish journey and encounters in Hell are vividly captured in Roger marsh’s ‘Il Cor Tristo’, a 2008 setting of two cantos from ‘Inferno’. [...] The programme is driven by the emotion and drama of its texts, which the quartet articulates with urgent lucidity. One or two rougher than normal edges in the singing give an apt rawness to the Dante. And, as the Hillairds approach retirement after four remarkable decades, they communicate Petrarch’s reflective, valedictory words with poignant sincerity.
Kate Bolton, BBC Music Magazine

I assumed I would find myself listening to the Pisano and Arcadelt pieces repeatedly - it’s such exquisite music – and get through the Marsh work to fulfill my duty as a reviewer. Instead I have been captivated by the entire album, by the way the pieces interact with each other in a timeless rapture. The older works actually contrast with each other as well: Pisano is an early innovator of Italian polyphony, and Arcadelt is more fluid and unpredictable.
The Hilliard men sing with their customary transparency; urgency, and expressiveness. Their diction is impeccable, allowing the poetry to come through as radiantly as the music. The recording, made in the St. Gerold Monastery in Austria, a favoured Hilliard venue, allows everything to emerge with warmth and the sense of mystery essential to this music.
Jack Sullivan, American Record Guide

‘Il Cor Tristo’ programmes 16th-century Italian madrigals on Petrarch texts with new settings of cantos from Dante's ‘Inferno’ by Roger Marsh. Marsh writes that his main aim was ‘to keep Dante's words clear at all times, and thus you will find in this contemporary music many devices usually encountered in music of much earlier times.’ There's also the matter of getting through an awful lot of Dante's text in a very short time. Marsh manages this beautifully, and listening to the Hilliards perform his sequence is an entertaining, theatrical experience.
Speech patterns dictate the flexibility of the rhythms, and the harmonies sound refreshingly modern but never at odds with the earlier madrigals. There are so many felicitous touches – sample baritone Gordon Jones's steady tread at the close of the first number, while the other three voices scamper above. Marsh's extended third movement is spellbinding. Elsewhere, six madrigals by Bernardo Pisano are sublime – their sophistication effortlessly projected by these voices. Three more by Jacques Arcadelt complete the sequence, their brighter, more open textures a welcome contrast. It's all excellent, and handsomely recorded in rich, resonant sound.
Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk