COMPOSERS: Rogier
LABELS: Linn
ALBUM TITLE: Rogier
WORKS: Music from the Missae Sex
PERFORMER: Magnificat; His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts/Philip Cave
CATALOGUE NO: CKD 387
Philippe Rogier, a Flemish chorister at the Spanish court, was appointed maestro di capella by Philip II. He held the post for just six years, until he died aged 35 in 1596. Magnificat has already done him proud with two previous collections of his work on Linn, and here Philip Cave includes the premiere recording of his Missa Inclita Stirps Jesse. The CD opens with Jacobus Clemens’s motet of the same name, published in 1549, on which Rogier based his Mass (such ‘parody masses’ were particularly popular in Spain). Cabezon’s organ work Cancion Francesca Glosada also refers to material by Clemens.
Although his compositions included here use some techniques established much earlier, Rogier’s feet seemed set on the evolutionary road away from florid polyphony. The Council of Trent would have been pleased: with just two voices per part, and with clear diction and articulation from the members of Magnificat, the texts are generally easy to follow. The lower voices are captured especially well, and the blend between the voices and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts is gorgeous.
Barry Witherden