Adorate Deum - Gregorian Chant / Alberto Turco, Nova Schola Gregoriana
ADORATE DEUM • Alberto Turco, dir; Nova Schola Gregoriana • NAXOS 8.550711 (75: 25)
After listening closely to more than 500 CDs of chant in less than a year, many of them very worthy, others burdened with a variety of faults, one of them might seem to be worthy of a special recommendation. This disc stood out for several reasons. The very full program offers 20 Mass Propers, four each of introits, graduals, alleluia verses, offertories, and communions. Mass Propers are generally regarded as the cream of the early crop of chants, brought north from Rome in the eighth century and edited by Frankish cantors to form what became known as Gregorian chant. Noteworthy in this selection are the offertories, for each of these four includes one verse. These verses are widely regarded as the peak of virtuosity for solo cantors, although they have not been used liturgically since the 12th century. They were edited by Carl Ott in 1935 and again last year by Rebecca Maloy in Inside the Offertory for Oxford University Press.
The performances, too, are special, for Alberto Turco is one of the leading scholars among the pupils of Eugène Cardine, who defined the semiological interpretation of neumes. These scholars have been busy for more than 25 years editing the Mass Propers, and the result has just been published in Regensburg as Graduale Novum—Editio Magis Critica Iuxta SC 117. Tomus I: De Dominicis et Festis . That means a more critical edition of the Gradual according to the explicit directive of the Constitution on the Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council, with the first volume including the Sundays and major feast days. The Graduale , of course, is the collection of Mass chants, currently known in the official 1974 edition annotated in 1979 as the Graduale Triplex . This new edition is not official in the same sense, just as the Nocturnale Romanum (Cologne, 2002) edited by the late Holger Peter Sandhofe was not, but these books both serve a purpose. On the Naxos disc, the soloist in the verses of all the chants is Alessio Randon, who has also directed his own schola (between them, Turco and Randon made a group of six discs for Naxos, of which this one was the first). Easily the best aspect of the program is Randon’s singing of two verses for each introit, the verse of each gradual (with the respond repeated), the verse of each alleluia, the verse of each offertory, and a verse for each communion. In the old days most church choirs sang chants straight through and no one got a solo turn, despite the formal requirements of the piece.
In addition to these 20 chants, the 21st and last selection is another communion. In the one glitch on this package, the notes identify the piece as the Gregorian communion for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost, but in fact this is an entirely different chant, a communion chant (the term is ad accedentes ) from the Hispanic repertoire that is one of the most familiar of the small number of such chants on records. Hispanic chant is gaining new attention lately with a forthcoming study by Rebecca Maloy and Emma Hornby and the publication this spring of a lavish color facsimile of the oldest and most important Hispanic source, the 10th-century antiphonal, Leon MS 8, a complete neumed collection of chants for both Mass and Office. This disc is equally appropriate for the chant specialist and for someone who wants as little as a single disc to fill an empty space in his collection.
FANFARE: J. F. Weber
Product Description:
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Release Date: June 28, 1993
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Catalog Number: 8550711
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UPC: 730099571128
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Label: Naxos
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Number of Discs: 1
Composer: Anonymous
Conductor: Alberto Turco
Orchestra/Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Works:
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Adorate Deum
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Da pacem
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Dominus illuminatio mea
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Laetetur cor
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Dirigatur
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Domine, Domine noster
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Iacta cogitatum tuum
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Laetatus sum
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Adorabo ad templum
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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De profundis
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Deus, iudex iustus
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Laudate Deum
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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De profundis
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Domine convertere
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Iubilate Deo universa terra
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Iustitiae Domini
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Circuibo
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Dicit Dominus: Implete hydria
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Dominus firmamentum meum
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Qui manducat
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco
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Psalm 33
Composer: Anonymous
Ensemble: Nova Schola Gregoriana
Conductor: Alberto Turco