Mozart: Litanies, K. 195 & 243 - JENNIFER VYVYAN / NANCY EVANS / WILLIAM HERBERT

A pair of L’Oiseau-Lyre albums reissued together, making their first appearance on Decca CD. As a church musician in Salzburg, the young Mozart was required to turn out a regular diet of masses and settings of the Vespers and Litanies. Sung at afternoon services on feast days, the Litany was a favourite form of Catholic devotional music in the eighteenth century. In the first complete recordings of two such litanies, a quartet of English soloists make contributions notable for beauty of both line and tone. ‘Jennifer Vyvyan sings with pure tone, sensitivity and admirable phrasing’ was Gramophone’s verdict on her leading role in the ‘Litaniae Lauretanae, KV 195’, of 1774 and the more extensive ‘Litaniae de venerabili altaris sacramento, KV 243’, of 1776. Like much of Mozart’s Salzburg church music, the ‘Litaniae Lauretanae, KV 195’ (not to be confused with his earlier setting of the same text, KV 109) is in a cheerful, Italianate style, indebted as much to dramatic gestures familiar from