Critical Reception: Seleced Reviews of Venice 1629
MusicWeb International: recording of the month (August 2018) and selected as one of the top recordings of 2018. Full review here:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Aug/Venice_1629_RES10218.htm (Johan van Veen)
Early Music Review (August 2018): 20/20 and 5 stars+ “Splendid CD … a model of good practice … Top of the range in every respect.” Full review here: http://earlymusicreview.com/4984-2/ (David Stancliffe)
The Telegraph (30 June 2018): 5 stars (Ivan Hewett)
BBC Radio 3 Record Review (28 July 2018): “If this really was the sound of music in Venice in 1629 it must have been a magical time for music!” (Andrew McGregor)
BBC Music Magazine (October 2018): 4 stars “A crisp and vivid evocation of the milieu of Venice, 1629. That was the year Heinrich Schütz went to Venice and encountered the music of Monteverdi and his acolytes. The playing is faultlessly stylish.”
Gramophone (March 2019): “The Gonzaga Band explore a range of music all published in Venice in 1629 – a landmark year because Schütz returned to La Serenissima nearly two decades after his studies with Gabrieli. The visitor soaked up new styles practiced by Monteverdi and other musicians associated with Venice. Two solo motets from Schütz’s Symphoniae sacrae (printed nine months after his arrival) and Monteverdi’s Exulta, filia Sion are sung by Faye Newton with sparkling clarity of tone, eloquent diction and relaxed embellishments of rare intelligence. Sonatas by Castello and Marini are likely to be the only other music here familiar to even ardent enthusiasts of early 17th-century Italian music; nearly half of the vocal and instrumental pieces by assorted composers have never been recorded before. Violinists Oliver Webber and Theresa Caudle, cornettists Jamie Savan and Helen Roberts and keyboardist Steven Devine play with abundant fluency, shapely virtuosity and brilliant sonorities.” (David Vickers).
Early Music America (October 2018): “There is something special about a world premiere… What a treat it is, then, to have a new album from the British ensemble the Gonzaga Band that contains not one but seven world premieres as exciting as they are excellent… Overall, it is a fine recording that adds as much to our historical knowledge as it does to our musical enjoyment.” Full review here:
https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/web-articles/cd-review-ah-venice-notes-the-gonzaga-band/ (Karen Cooke)
Historic Brass Society (New York, October 2018): “The performances are uniformly excellent … The recording represents a great deal of research, diligence, and creativity and deserves great attention for all performers or students of seventeenth century music.” Full review here: https://www.historicbrass.org/features/reviews/recording-reviews/21-features/recordings/152-the-gonzaga-band-venice-1629 (James Miller)