Vidi speciosam – Sacred Choral Music Dominic Bevan: Magnificat; G Holst: Ave Maria; Nunc dimittis; Palestrina: Sicut cervus; Victoria: Missa Vidi speciosam; plus works by G Croce, Infantas, Lobo, R Parsons, Stanford and Tallis The Bevan Family Consort Signum Classics SIGCD746 60:42 mins
The Bevan family have been producing recordings since 1975 when they were directed by Roger Bevan. This current album is partly in homage to Roger’s son David, one time assistant director of music at Westminster Cathedral, who died in 2021. So it contains some well-known choral favourites by Tallis, Palestrina and others, but also a highly professional if functional setting of the Magnificat by David Bevan himself, lovingly performed.
They are particularly good at strongly textured works such as Croce’s In spirito humilitatis, tinged with Venetian monumentalism, or Holst’s Nunc dimittis with its ecstatic ending. This last piece was not discovered until 1979, some 45 years after Holst’s death. Other rarities include the Dignare me by Fernando de las Infantas, apparently a Spanish nobleman working in Rome – so obscure as to be practically confidential. The works with intricate polyphony are pleasingly performed, though in the Kyrie and Gloria of Victoria’s Missa Vidi speciosam the upper voices are a little sharp and the overall acoustic seems rather distant. Breath control and phrasing is always musical and is apparent even in the plainsongs (Ave Maria). The most beautiful work here is Alonso Lobo’s Versus est in luctum. The voices of the Bevan Consort are slightly too disparately coloured to match the magical poise of this work achieved by the group Tenebrae (also on Signum) which shares an album with Victoria’s Requiem.
Anthony Pryer