Magnificat, Philip Cave - de Victoria: Officium Defunctorum 1605 (2014)

Tomás Luís de Victoria's Officium Defunctorum (a.k.a. Requiem) has become enough of a sacred music warhorse to make a jaded reviewer groan, "Not again!" What's more, the work's popularity has skewed the modern public's view of Victoria, giving him a reputation for dark and intense Iberian mysticism when his contemporaries considered him a basically joyous composer (see, for example, the Mass and motet O quam gloriosum). Yet with a well-judged crescendo on the very first chord of the disc, Philip Cave and his choir grab your attention and won't let go. Magnificat performs the Requiem even more cleanly and precisely than do the famously immaculate Tallis Scholars--yet with a warmth and dynamic subtlety the more famous group sometimes lacks. (As it happens, Cave is a Tallis Scholar himself; his singers work regularly with the Sixteen, the Gabrieli Consort, and the like.) Most strikingly, the choir's sound has a dulcet glow that seems to link the Requiem directly with Victoria's more cheerful music. Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli Consort bring out more of the Requiem's drama and intensity (and a better idea of how Victoria intended it to be used), but Magnificat's performance, like no other, captures its sweetness and light. --Matthew Westphal