Gramophone Magazine
September 2024
Editor's Choice

Amy Haworth (soprano), Esther Lay (soprano)
Contrapunctus, Owen Rees

Monteverdi: Cantate Domino
Legrenzi: Salve Regina
Legrenzi: Intret in conspectu tuo
Monteverdi: Adoramus te, Christe
Lotti: Crucifixus a 5
Colonna, G P: Victimae paschali laudes
Steffani: Qui Diligit Mariam
Monteverdi: Domine, ne in furore tuo
Legrenzi: Quam amarum est Maria
Lotti: Crucifixus in 8 parts
Monteverdi: Christe, adoramus te
Legrenzi: Converte nos Deus
Bernabei: Tribulationes cordis mei
Legrenzi: Ave regina cælorum

Harmonies of Devotion is both an exploration of the Italian motet repertory of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and a celebration of the devotion to this sacred repertory displayed by English antiquarian collectors of the eighteenth century. Among the works recorded here for the first time are Giovanni Legrenzi’s six-voice masterpiece Intret in conspectu tuo, which survives thanks to a copy made in London by Handel, a five-voice Crucifixus by Legrenzi’s pupil Antonio Lotti, sent to London’s newly formed Academy of Ancient Music, a grand Marian motet written for the Academy by Agostino Steffani, and music by Steffani’s teacher Ercole Bernabei, again collected by members of London’s antiquarian music clubs. The recording reveals lines of influence between teachers and pupils, and traces the lineage of the dramatic seconda prattica motet back to its principal source and pioneer: Monteverdi.

"The Steffani is particularly impressive, from its earworm of an opening to the final peroration, with both languor and extroversion in between. The ensemble here is frequently superb. Rees’s singers ornament their lines subtly." - Gramophone Magazine, September 2024