Striggio - Mass in 40 parts
I Fagiolini / Hollingworth
Decca 478 2734 (CD & DVD)

Release date March 2011

Alessandro Striggio's long-lost 40-part mass Ecce Si Beato Giorno was rediscovered just a few years ago in Paris's Bibliotheque Nationale by harpsichordist and musicologist Davitt Moroney. The mass, dating from 1566, is based on Striggio's earlier 40-part motet Ecce beatam lucem (the first track on this CD) and has an interesting history. Striggio's patron in Florence, Cosimo de' Medici, wished to persuade the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna to grant him the title "King of Tuscany" he therefore sent Striggio across the Alps in winter, a donkey carrying the part-books, to present the music as a gift. The bribe didn't work, but Striggio did go on to Munich, where his mass is known to have been performed with instruments supplementing the singers, and to London, where he is almost certain to have met Tallis and Byrd. (It is possible that Tallis may then have written his 40-part motet Spem in alium in response to a challenge from the Duke of Norfolk, "Is there not an Englishman who can make a song like this?") The music is written for five 8-part choirs; while it can be performed with singers alone, Robert Hollingworth has chosen to add colour by supplementing each choir with instrumentalists. Thus, one choir has sackbuts added, another lutes, and so on. (Most of the UK's top Renaissance groups are represented on this recording.) Striggio writes large, slow-moving harmonic sequences, with a lot of filigree detail. Several of the mass movements start with a solo soprano, the number of voices gradually building up and varying within each movement. The second Agnus dei is actually in sixty parts, requiring the addition of a further 11 singers and players to the 58 used in the rest of the mass. Hollingworth elicits very beautiful sounds from his forces; the Decca engineers have done a great job, but for music such as this requiring the spatial separation of choirs, ideally a surround-sound system is required. (Decca provide surround-sound versions of the 40-part music on the DVD included with the CD.) The CD includes more vocal and instrumental works by Striggio, and a lovely performance of Tallis's Spem in alium with rarely-heard instrumental accompaniment.

Reviewed by Anne McAlister