The Sacred Music. Volume 2 (CD)

Available in both standard CD and also multi-channel DSD hybrid SACD formats, this second volume of Hyperion’s project to record all of Monteverdi’s sacred music focuses on works to be found in the 1650 publication Messa a quattro voci e salmi. Here we find a glorious Mass-setting (one of only three to have survived complete – the 1597 Mass is recorded on volume 1), and the composer’s well crafted response to the epic Litany of Loreto. The third work here with full choir is the five-part Exultent caeli, a suitably joyous little work published in 1629. Distinguished soloists Carolyn Sampson, Rebecca Outram, Rogers Covey-Crump, Charles Daniels, James Gilchrist and Peter Harvey share out the remaining works: the duets Venite, siccientes, Ego dormio, Cantate Domino and O beatae viae, and the solo pieces Currite populi and Laudate Dominum (sung by Gilchrist and Harvey, respectively).

R10 CLASSICA RÉPÉRTOIRE DU MOIS
'Sumptuous surround sound and full-blooded performances from Robert King and Co. combine to thrilling effect in the second release in their fabulous Monteverdi cycle' (Classic FM Magazine)
'... there are joys here to melt icebergs ... I want Volume 3 immediately' (The Times)
'Monteverdi is one of those composers who really does merit a complete recording of his output. The sacred works have been a little neglected, and this splendid new series, with its informed and intelligent booklet notes, is putting things right' (BBC Music Magazine)
'I'll say it straight out: the result is truly exciting! The music is magnificent, and so is the interpretation … The architecture of the programme is particularly remarkable, and the album is built on balance, variety, contrast' (Goldberg Early Music Magazine)
'Where this new disc really comes into its own is in the small-scale motets, where King's outstanding roster of soloists would be exceedingly difficult to better … The rarely performed motets alone should ensure the present disc its place in any Monteverdi collection, while John Whenham's notes prove as valuable an asset as those Michael Talbot provided for King's Vivaldi sacred music traversal' (Fanfare, USA)
'This is an absolutely crack team of soloists, all of whom are completely at home in Monteverdi's idiom. The tenors in particular luxuriate in the ornamental roulades ...' (Early Music)
'En effet, c'est avec un tact et une finesse sans précédent que King mène son corpus instrumental … La douceur séraphique de Sampson et Outram dans le Venite, Siccientes n'a d'équivalent que la parfaite maîrise de la diction, des sons enflés et de la souplesse de ces voix' (Classica, France)