"Striggio... it wasn't even a dream; it was the big score that didn't fit in any drawer, that I would put under the cupboards and take with me every time I moved for more than twenty years.
It was the "monument" that I read from time to time when I thought to myself: "God, it's beautiful! But I will never be able to ride this awesome incongruity before I die. "That was the craziest idea."
Hervé Niquet
It is to the polychorality of the Renaissance and the "Monumental Baroque" that Hervé Niquet dedicates this recording, recreating the musical celebrations in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in honor of Saint John the Baptist: the 40 and 60 voices Mass of Alessandro Striggio, Missa sopra Ecco ssi beato giorno, is accompanied by the motet, Ecce beatem lucem, and three works by Orazio Benevolo, another "specialist" in "monumental" choral music.
During the recording at Notre-Dame du Liban in Paris, based on an edition of the Mass produced by Dominique Visse in 1978, Hervé Niquet gathered 60 voices (number required by the Agnus Dei) and the instrumentalists of Le Concert Spirituel, in a circle around him (and the microphones) for a new sound experience "SACD surround" by Glossa.
