Matheo Romero: Office pour l'Ordre de la Toison d'Or
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Matheo Romero: Office pour l'Ordre de la Toison d'Or
- Main performer: Jean Tubéry
- Booklet languages: English, French, Dutch, German
- Libretto languages: Latin, Spanish
- Time: 55:38
- Release Date: 2005
Review
This Belgian recording by the Choeur de Chambre de Namur (Namur Chamber Choir) provides fresh testimony to the vigor of the early Baroque scene. What we have here is a small, local choir involved in an ambitious attempt to reconstruct something of the career of a composer whose works are mostly lost. Mateo Romero, born Mathieu Romarin in Liège around 1575, was brought to Spain and given the Iberian version of his name. He served at the court of Spain's Philip III and later became a clerk in the Order of the Golden Fleece, apparently with substantial musical responsibilities. Much of his output was lost in a 1734 fire, and an earthquake in 1755 finished off other manuscripts. This disc combines parts of several surviving pieces to try to give an idea of how Romero's music might have been used in a large, festive situation: this Office pour l'Ordre de la Toison d'Or (Offices for the Order of the Golden Fleece) includes music by Romero that could have been used in a celebration of the Feast of St. Andrew, the order's patron saint, that is known to have occurred in Madrid in 1625. There is a Magnificat setting, pieces for the Ordinary and Proper of the mass, chants, and a few pieces for organ written by composers other than Romero. Students of church music interested in imagining how composers worked within the practical requirements of the Catholic service at various times will be interested in this disc.For the general listener, it's probably a bit obscure, but if you like the big, multi-choir pieces of Monteverdi, Schütz, or Giovanni Gabrieli, try this music out for another national variant -- Romero seems to have been very well aware of the new stylistic trends coming from Venice and the sonically multifarious environment of San Marco. The Ordinary movements here (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus/Benedictus, and Agnus Dei) are taken from a Missa bonae voluntatis by Romero, a novel work that sets a soloist-and-continuo grouping (confusingly referred to in the notes as a "choir") against two choruses. The Choeur de Chambre de Namur under conductor Jean Tubéry achieves the bright splendor appropriate to this sound, and the instrumental ensemble La Fenice provides historically appropriate accompaniment including trombones, a small positive organ, a theorbo, and a Spanish harp. Their efforts get partially lost in the cavernous sonic spaces of the St. Apollinaire Church in Bolland, Belgium, but this is still an unusual piece of reconstruction work that libraries and lovers of the early Baroque will want to investigate. ~ James Manheim, Rovi
Performances
| Mateso! | |
| Matheo Romero: Romerico Florido |
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