Having sold about one-and-a-half million copies, this particular treasure is far from sunken but it remains a most precious jewel which is well worth dusting down and polishing anew, so here goes.
Very few recordings resonate like this one does. There’s a precision to its beauty that’s beyond criticism or categorisation. Its ineluctable charms straddle all sorts of generic barriers and taste boundaries. If you haven’t heard it before or think it might not be for you, then watch out, It’ll capture your heart unbidden. It’s as perfectly realised and inherently seductive as the most elusive dream.
The invention of the saxophone was a few centuries away when this music was conceived but I’d hazard a guess that farseeing composers like Cristobal de Morales and Guillaume Dufay would approve of its magisterial presence on these recordings.
The merging of medieval choral music with its sound was an audacious move that could have yielded catastrophic results, but they are interwoven so harmoniously here. It’s a fascinating conversation they conduct and following its intimate contours is a joy.
The saxophone spirals around the voices of the Hilliard Ensemble in so effortlessly fluid a manner it acts more like a fifth voice than a separate instrument. Sometimes it takes the lead and guides the choir over the crest of a wave. Spiralling out of those high lines he’ll then swoop to take the lower road, shadowing them unobtrusively, delicately embellishing the modal harmonies with the deftest of touches.
The resounding natural reverberation of St Gerold’s monastry in Austria adds a touch of architectural wonder to the acoustics. It’s devotional music reimagined for less faithful times and I for one believe. Divine is the word.
