Cupertinos & Luís Toscano - Cristo: Magnificat, Marian Antiphons & Missa Salve regina (2023) [Hi-Res]

Portuguese composer Pedro de Cristo is nowhere near as familiar as Duarte Lobo or Manuel Cardoso, who may show up on general concerts of Renaissance choral music. Cristo's music was never published and was largely lost to history until some painstaking research work, described in the booklet of this Hyperion release. That is likely to change after this 2022 release by the eight-voice choir Cupertinos, which made classical best-seller charts late that year. The music is lovely, with the limpid, reverential treatment of text found in the works of Cristo's greatest Spanish contemporaries. There are long homophonic stretches in the motets that have a starkly emotional effect. The Missa Salve regina, whose motet exemplar is included, is more thoroughly polyphonic, but Cristo's orientation toward directness and clarity remains. Sample the gorgeous Crucifixus section. The program is framed by two-choir pieces, and it is interesting how Cristo offers antiphonal effects even in the smaller pieces. In the polychoral works, the small choir is underpowered in the imposing Basilica do Bom Jesus in Braga, Portugal, but otherwise, Cupertinos is an extraordinary group that executes the black-belt eight-voice configuration brilliantly. For many Renaissance music lovers, this album will be a wonderful discovery.

Review by James Manheim