Victoria: Missa Ave Maris Stella

This is likely to become one of your most cherished discs. It's notable for its spacious depth of sound, volatile unpredictability of interpretation, and above all the soaring sostenuto of the... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Catalogue No: CDA66114
Label: Hyperion
Length: 56 minutes

Gramophone Awards

1985

Winner - Early Music (Medieval and Renaissance)
Building a Library

June 2016

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Victoria: O quam gloriosum

Work length2:42

$1.00

$1.25

Westminster Cathedral Choir
David Hill

Victoria: Missa O quam gloriosum

Work length22:11

$5.00

$6.25

Westminster Cathedral Choir
David Hill

I. Kyrie

Track length2:08

$1.00

$1.25

II. Gloria

Track length3:58

$1.00

$1.25

III. Credo

Track length5:56

$1.00

$1.25

IV. Sanctus

Track length5:07

$1.00

$1.25

V. Agnus Dei

Track length5:02

$1.00

$1.25

Victoria: Missa Ave Maris Stella

Work length31:46

$5.50

$6.85

Westminster Cathedral Choir
David Hill

I. Kyrie

Track length3:36

$1.00

$1.25

II. Gloria

Track length6:36

$1.00

$1.25

III. Credo

Track length9:23

$1.50

$1.85

IV. Sanctus

Track length5:54

$1.00

$1.25

V. Agnus Dei

Track length6:17

$1.00

$1.25

Reviews
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Reviews

2010

This is likely to become one of your most cherished discs. It's notable for its spacious depth of sound, volatile unpredictability of interpretation, and above all the soaring sostenuto of the boy trebles, with their forward and slightly nasal tone quality.
With their magnificently controlled legato lines, the Westminster boys treat Victoria's music as though it were some vast plainchant, with a passion that excites and uplifts. The choir is recorded in the exceptionally resonant Westminster Cathedral, at a distance and with great atmosphere.
Ave maris stella isn't one of Victoria's familiar Masses, quite simply because no music publisher has made it available to choirs in a good, cheap edition. To have it rescued from obscurity is laudable in itself, but to have it sung with such poise and sensitivity is an unexpected double treat.
Unlike O quam gloriosum, this is a work that thrills with echoes of Victoria's Spanish upbringing, of Morales and his predecessors, even of Josquin Desprez, whose own Ave maris stella Mass was brought to the cathedrals of the Iberian peninsula earlier in the century. The plainchant melody, familiar through Monteverdi's setting in the 1610 Vespers, completely dominates Victoria's music, for it's placed most often in huge treble lines that wheel high above the general texture. Magnificent as the early parts of the work are, nothing quite matches the final five-part Agnus Dei, sung here with admirable support and exquisitely shaped by David Hill.
Recommended without reservation.

Victoria: Missa Ave Maris Stella

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