Wolfango – Poulenc, Dalla Vecchia: Sacred Works

   in Choir & Organ (Jul, 2015)
This disc of sacred music by Vecchia comprises four short vocal pieces – Kyrie and Gloria ‘after Beethoven’, Angele Dei, Salve Regina and Sancte Michael Archangeli all dating from the 1980s – and the more substantial Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund for organ, written to mark the tercentenary of Bach’s birth in 1985. All reveal Vecchia’s fine ear for complex and rich harmonic structures, which conductor Francesco Erle, a former pupil of Vecchia, brings out in these thoroughly tidy readings. The organ piece is particularly involving in its expansion of familiar chorale melodies, with well-chosen registrations and clarity of articulation. Vecchia’s organ version of the Poulenc Gloria is …