Ensemble Organum - Chant Mass for Christmas Day

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Ensemble Organum / Marcel Peres

"This disc is a welcome addition to the growing number of chant recordings illustrating various repertoires and styles of performance over the centuries. It is not the first time that 17th- and 18th-century organ chant alternatim has been recorded, but there cannot be many discs with a programme of pieces drawn from the old rite of Paris; a splendid rite destined, sadly, to disappear at the end of the nineteenth century. To my ears it all seems to tie up extremely well: the utterly splendid Parisian chant, quite different from its Roman counterpart, provides the pieces of the Proper for Christmas Day... As for the Ordinary, Campra's magnificently tuneful `neo-Gallican' plainchant provides the organist with the material on which to base his improvisations, and the choir a chance to prove that a slow, dignified tempo will match up to the noble versets on the 18th-century Cliquot organ at Houdan far better than those hurried snatches of chant one so often hears. Peres makes this point extremely well, and I would recommend the recording for that reason alone. However, there is more: the introduction of the trebles (Les Pages de la Chapelle) was an inspired stroke, especially for a Mass of Christmas. They sing with strong, confident young voices, and have no fear of sustaining long phrases of slow notes, nor of adding some conventional ornamentation of the period." Gramophone, January 1996.