The Cardinall's Musick: Performance Diary

WILLIAM BYRD: INFELIX EGO (BYRD EDITION VOL. 13)

A longstanding complete project is rounded off in impressive syle.

Hyperion has done Byrd proud: to Davitt Moroney’s award-winning traversal of the complete keyboard music we can now add 13 volumes devoted to all of his sacred music. The membership of The Cardinall’s Musick has remained virtually unchanged in the many years it’s taken to complete. As with the last few volumes, this final instalment combines excerpts from the 1591 Cantiones sacrae and the Propers from Feast of All Saints from the later, monumental Gradualia of 1605/07. It’s a mixture also of the celebratory, as though the singers were congratulating themselves on a job well done – as well they might – and the penitential, concluding with the full ensemble in a finely judged and quite extrovert Infelix ego, surely one of Byrd’s most memorable motets.

Yet the same might be said of so much of this music, the craftsmanship of which is impeccable, and the expression seemingly so heartfelt (try the marvellously restrained Justorum animae, for example). Most of it’s taken with trebles on the top lines (as the spirited opener, Venite exultemus Domino) but when the line-up consists only of men (as in Domine, non sum dignus and Domine salva nos), the blend of voices is perhaps still more convincing. There is and has been much to praise, and at a time when early music ensembles are finding it increasingly difficult to get concerts or make records, the commitment of singers and label alike is a cause for gratitude, perhaps even optimism. Congratulations to all concerned.

Date: April 2010    

WILLIAM BYRD: INFELIX EGO (BYRD EDITION VOL. 13)

In this, the thirteenth and last disc of its Byrd series, The Cardinall’s Musick pays tribute to the whole landscape of Byrd’s genius with a passion that ends the project on a high. As with the earlier instalments, Andrew Carwood’s direction and programming are equally inspired. This time, however, it is the contrasts – rather than consistencies – in Byrd’s moods, textures and techniques that are explored. The listener is taken swiftly from a delicate high-voiced miniature (Visita quaesumus) to the full-throated, madrigal-style Haec dies to the old-style Afflicti pro peccatis nostris, based on a cantus firmus. The centrepiece is the searing Infelix ego; here, the recusant Byrd explores a martyr’s preparation for death, taking the listener through every emotional extreme before transcending the built-up tension in a glorious coda.

The musical imagination of The Cardinall’s Musick does full justice to that of Byrd. Unique about this ensemble is its expressiveness, whether members sing seamlessly as one or tug at each others’ lines. The group’s delivery is a sensual delight, as an individual singer’s colours will flash up in polyphonic lines, then pool together with others in homophony.

The polish of this disc’s engineering matches the quality of its performances and the seriousness of its scholarly intent. My one quibble is that some soprano solo entries – notably those in Haec dies – end up sounding nervous while seeking to be playful. Such moments take nothing, however, from the grandeur of this reading.

Date: April 2010    

WILLIAM BYRD: INFELIX EGO (BYRD EDITION VOL. 13)

When Andrew Carwood writes in the introduction to this disc that Elizabethan England produced ‘an amazing array of artistic talent’, he might just as easily have been referring to our own age. Certainly some of England’s finest current vocal talent is lined up here, and as a display of the best ensemble singing talent Britain can produce (to my certain knowledge there is at least one Welsh voice present), this disc is a great showcase (the group comprises two sopranos, two countertenors, four tenors, two baritones and two basses). It is also very much the crowning glory of The Cardinall’s Musick’s survey of Byrd’s Latin Church Music, a series which began on ASV back in 1997, where it ran for nine discs before, in 2006, heading off to Hyperion for three more. All twelve discs have offered up reference-standard performances of Byrd’s music and here, with the final disc in the series, we have truly exceptional performances of some of his most popular motets.

That said, these performances do not recreate in any way the music of Byrd as the Elizabethans would have heard it. There may be textural authenticity here and the interpretations may have been governed by deep scholarly investigation into the performance practice of Byrd’s time, but what we have is not so much performances which attempt to re-create the sound-world of Byrd’s day as to bring to our ears the same measure of integrity and faithfulness to the original conception as facsimile versions of first editions do to our eyes. This is Byrd uncluttered by the failings and idiosycrasies of musical attitudes in the ensuing four centuries and restored to a kind of glory the composer, in his wildest dreams, could never have imagined. That Byrd’s music not only survives such microscopic attention to detail and nuance but positively flourishes under it speaks volumes not only of its original quality but of the artistic integrity of The Cardinall’s Musick.

Superbly poised entries, fluid textures, immaculately turned phrases and beautifully moulded cadence points all give this a strange combination of delicacy and sturdiness – an old master reprinted on vinyl, if you like – which is ultimately deeply satisfying both to the ear and the intellect. These are thoroughly assured performances which leave no room for technical or musical doubt. The contrasting dynamics at the start of Domine, salve nos dignus are so precisely measured and carefully conveyed in this performance that one suspects hours of painstaking preparation and discussion have gone into this one musical moment. As much care and preparation has also gone into the tiny 45-second Deo gracias as to the weighty Infelix ego, precisely 17 times its length (a work Carwood describes as ‘the crowning glory of Byrd’s achievement’), while Haec dies, possibly Byrd’s most frequently performed piece of sacred music, bounces along as happily as ever, but with glorious crystalline transparency of texture. There is an almost languid quality about this performance of Cunctis diebus, an object-lesson in unaccompanied part-singing, each voice perfectly in its place, the blend delightful to the ear, the lines warmly embracing each other and the overall architecture lovingly moulded by Carwood’s subtle and distinguished direction. These are very much yardstick performances, offering a hitherto unattainable ideal which reveals the true glory of Byrd’s creation.

Coupled with a warm and fulsome recording and the tremendously lucid notes which characterize everything Carwood handles on this disc, this CD in its own right stands as one of the most satisfying recordings of Elizabethan church music to have emerged in recent years.

Date: February 2010    

WILLIAM BYRD: INFELIX EGO (BYRD EDITION VOL. 13)

The Byrd Edition finally comes to an end with this highly impassioned volume that closes with a long-awaited recording of Infelix ego. Regular readers will know that I have been extremely enthusiastic about this entire recording-project which I see as important both for understanding the magnitude of Byrd’s compositional achievements and for the way that The Cardinall’s Musick have established new expressive possibilities in early choral singing. In short, the importance of The Byrd Edition is not to be underestimated and this last volume is certainly a desert-island disc if ever there was one.

The Gradualia is an astonishing achievement and throughout The Byrd Edition, Andrew Carwood has presented the work in liturgically appropriate combinations that, due to the ‘modular’ nature of its conception, lead to some repetition of short movements. The Propers for The Feast of All Saints, performed on this disc are intriguingly scored for SSATB and the double soprano parts, sung so beautifully by Carys Lane and Rebecca Outram, lend a lighter and, dare I say it, more hopeful tone than we hear in the Cantiones Sacraepieces.

However, the fact that these Propers appear at the end of the five-part fascicle of the Gradualia (1605) is interesting because before them comes what Philip Brett once famously described as ‘a non-liturgical zone’, which he thought was there to reassure people that the collection did not ‘represent acquiescence or resignation to the political situation facing Roman Catholics in Protestant England’, indicating strongly that any hopeful tone we detect conveys something of Byrd’s spectacular defiance rather than a settling down in later life. For example, listen for the way the tenor part climbs high in Timete Dominum on the words ‘onerati estis’ (you who are burdened) and the flurry of music that immediately follows on ‘et ego reficiam vos’ (and I will refresh you). It’s an astonishing setting and a wonderfully intelligent performance. The upper voices cleverly phrase ‘omnis laboratis’ (all ye who labour) in preparation for this sequence of musical events, which indicate their deep understanding of the significance that this text had to Byrd and his recusant friends.

Placing works from the Cantiones Sacrae of 1591 either side of these Propers allows Carwood to exploit the full potential of his remarkable singers as they move between what are often quite different styles. Both collections are intellectually demanding, as Byrd never ceases to set not only the text in hand but also the thoughts behind it and their significance to his target audience. And Byrd takes his music to some extrovert places that often make significant vocal demands on singers of the Cantiones Sacrae. Such demands make Alan Brown’s reasoning that both the Cantiones Sacrae of 1589 and 1591 are vocal chamber music collections that were sung in the same context as madrigals seem even more convincing, especially as we hear these powerful performances on this disc.

Even Haec dies, well known to every chorister from its inclusion in the famous Oxford Book of Tudor Anthems, is sung with deep consideration. In 1601 it was reported that Mark Bosworth sung this text ‘with a joyful accent’ at the gallows. His was a double execution, and the other condemned man, Roger Filcock, is said to have joined him ‘in the same tone’ at ‘Et laetemur in ea’. What better setting than Byrd’s outrageously joyful music to demonstrate that the Catholic spirit would not be quashed? I feel that something of this history comes through in Carwood’s interpretation, as impossible to quantify as that may seem.

Reflecting on the changes in the way that renaissance polyphony has been performed over the last forty years, it seemed to me that there was a time, post-Munrow, when the early music movement was characterised by a desire to refuse things. By saying no to vibrato, portamento, big dynamic changes and overtly text-based approaches, performers hoped that they might get closer to the ‘music itself’. Certainly, stripping polyphonic textures back to their bare scaffolding was an instructive phase for both the performers and listeners but as the philosopher and aesthete Theodor Adorno said back in the 60s, ‘Objectivity is not left over once the subject is extracted’. Even so, the once ubiquitous clinical urtext-style of performance has repeatedly proved highly marketable and, paradoxically, extremely moving.

Throughout the 80s and 90s ensembles such as The Tallis Scholars (building on earlier work by Sir David Wilcox and David Wulstan) regaled us with performances of great delicacy which were not unlike Glenn Gould’s Bach; the inner voices of musical textures being revealed through a clarity and luminosity of performance. Such performances did much to rescue choral music from the heavy sound that 60s performers like The Prague Madrigal Singers had once published. Somewhere along the line audiences voted with their feet and light, agile (Oxbridge) voices were found to be most favoured for this repertoire. Yet despite an influx of ‘purity’ to the music, emotion was never fully suppressed; The Hilliard Ensemble, expressive and instantly recognisable, have always brought a noticeably involved approach to their performances as have The Choir of Westminster Cathedral and now, finally, with The Cardinall’s Musick one feels that a larger sea-change in performance practice may well be afoot.

Such expressivity in Byrd is not entirely new of course, The Cantiones Sacrae have inspired fine performances in the past – I’m thinking of New College Choir, Oxford in ’83 and ’86 in particular, but this latest release is surely the best available to date. The Cardinall’s Musick have utterly convinced me of Byrd’s genius and it is astonishing to think that a full exploration of his Latin church music was never attempted before.

Particular highlights from the series – for those new to this collection – would be volume three which ended with Philippe de Monte’s setting of Super flumina Babylonis and Byrd’s Quomodo cantabimus and just about all of volume ten (Laudibus in Sanctis), which was utterly sublime. Now we must add the present volume and its powerful performance of Infelix ego to that list. My only concern is that the older volumes on ASV may become harder to obtain now that the later volumes have moved to Hyperion. It remains to be seen what sort of arrangement can be organised between record companies; will there ever be the one boxed-set or will it forever be Byrd-part-the-first, and Byrd-part-the-second?

Date: 14 February 2010    

WILLIAM BYRD: HODIE SIMON PETRUS (BYRD EDITION 11)

It may have been quite a long time coming but this eleventh disc from The Cardinall’s Musick in their monumental exploration of William Byrd has certainly been worth the wait. The programme is built from the Cantiones Sacrae of 1591 and the Gradualia of 1607 and focuses on Byrd’s recusant music. Throughout their series of recordings this method of interspersing the three books of Cantiones Sacrae with the two of Gradualia has been highly successful and what is most exciting is that it allows Andrew Carwood to be the first director to record the entire music from the Gradualia in liturgically appropriate combinations.

Opening this album is the exquisite six-voice setting of Descendit de caelis which immediately confirms that these are performances that are every bit as good as the previous award-winning volume. There can be very few singers in the world just now that have such an understanding of Byrd’s vocal works as The Cardinall’s Musick and here they give impassioned and immediate performances that move on from the early music stereotypes that used to dominate in this field. But however passionately they are sung, these later Cantiones Sacrae motets are not easy listening. Carwood never flinches from the glimpses of despair that Byrd and his Catholic friends would have felt as they clung on to their faith in troubled times, nor is he tempted to over-represent the more hopeful moments in an attempt to sugar-coat the situation either. This is deeply emotional music and it is astonishing to think that Byrd could have published it in such times.

There is a different atmosphere to the movements from the 1607 Gradualia however. These were written after Byrd had relocated from London to the relative tranquility of Essex; but even in Stondon Massey, the Byrd family were not quite beyond the reach of the law and many of these pieces were performed in secret at Ingatestone Hall. I wonder if the intimacy of these original performances is reflected here by the one-voice-per-part approach with Rebecca Outram and Caroline Trevor complementing each other so beautifully on the on the upper lines? Indeed it is pleasing to hear women’s voices in this music rather than high countertenors as it conjures up images of the Gradualia as chamber music, performed in the home of recusants who would have avoided the more obvious settings of private chapels to celebrate mass.

Certainly Hodie Simon Petrus has madrigalian traits, the jangling of the keys of heaven, and in Solve, jubente Deo there is similarly quick and intricate music at the casting off of chains. The detail in these later works from the second book of Gradualia never ceases to amaze and it is wonderful to have it all so brilliantly realized by The Cardinall’s Musick.

Despite the outstanding performances it is ultimately William Byrd himself who is the star of this disc; with eleven volumes of Latin church music recorded so far there is still no hint of his inspiration drying up. It takes a very exceptional talent to find so many varied and interesting ways to set the word ‘Alleluia’ as he does in the Gradualia and an equally special ensemble to sing each one in such a fresh way.

This bigger, bolder style of singing polyphony that The Cardinall’s Musick have pioneered seems, to my modern ears, very suitable for Byrd’s impassioned music but whether or not it stands a longer test of time remains to be seen. Fashions in singing are fickle and on these grounds one can understand why many conductors seem to prefer a less interpreted ‘urtext’ approach to their recorded work. I often think that The Cardinall’s Musick is what happens when The Tallis Scholars let their hair down, and in this music—at least—it seems that they are taking us on an exhilarating voyage of discovery, the importance of which cannot be overestimated.

Date: 29 January 2009    

HIERONYMUS PRAETORIUS: MAGNIFICATS & MOTETS

… These are stunning performances, which is of course to be expected from this remarkable vocal ensemble. Between the extremes of the virtuosic Gaudete omnes and the relative simplicity of Videns Dominus and Benedicto mensae lie the strangely ambivalent rhythms and harmonies of O bone Jesu, the dark despair of O vos omnes and the exuberance of the Magnificat settings; all are bathed in a richly textured and highly variegated choral sound. In addition, Carwood’s direction ensures for the most part a dramatic yet flexible forward propulsion that allows the meaning of the texts to shine through unhindered.

… Hieronymous Praetorius is considered by many to be one of the greatest North German composers of the first half of the seventeenth century. This release will surely go some way to convincing the rest of us of the truth of this assertion.

Date: October 2008    

BRINKBURN FESTIVAL: WILLIAM BYRD

Whether in various permutations of voices … or all combined, the technical standards were outstanding with flawless tuning, pinpoint accurate entries and firmness of tone in even the quietest passages. But it is interpretative choices that make a performance and every line had an inevitable flow, individual voices shifting seamlessly in or out of prominence to illuminate even the most involved counterpoints with a superb balance between the individual and the collective.

Date: 12 July 2008    

BRIGHTON FESTIVAL: THE BOOTMAKER’S DAUGHTER

Although this is primarily a … morality play, deftly written by Chris Dixon and powerfully staged in the long candlelit nave by Thomas Guthrie, it is the singing of the Cardinall’s Musick that provides the emotional kindling.

Date: 8 May 2008    

CHRISTMAS CONCERT: ST JOHN’S, SMITH SQUARE

Thrilling echoes of turbulent times

This concert was devoted to two composers who epitomised those turbulent times in music: Thomas Tallis and his pupil – and eventual colleague and business partner – William Byrd.

If there was a theme evident in the sound itself, it was the fierceness of the doctrinal debates over music. On the one hand we had the ostentatiously plain English psalm tunes by Tallis. These were written for the new English liturgy, so comprehensibility was the rule. On the other, we had long, glorious swathes of old-style Catholic polyphony, written by both composers even after the Reformation (Queen Elizabeth turned a blind eye to their religious backsliding). Here the words seem to go on so long that you forgot what the first syllable was: in any case, you hardly cared, because the tangle of melodic lines was so gorgeous in itself.

These performances eloquently revealed the virtues of both styles. Tallis’s psalm tunes may look plain, but when their melodies are made shapely and supple, and the words uttered with conviction, they’re revealed to be little gems. The bigger, more elaborate pieces needed a different approach. They’re written in long, overlapping paragraphs which can so easily lose their tension and sag. But by cleverly varying the pace and making the counterpoint viidly clear, the director, Andrew Carwood, created a thrilling cumulative tension. The ending of Tallis’s Salve intemerata virgo was as overwhelming as a Mahler symphony, at a tenth of the volume.

Date: 21 December 2006    

WILLIAM BYRD: LAUDIBUS IN SANCTIS (BYRD EDITION 10)

Having moved from ASV to Hyperion, The Cardinall’s Musick continues its invaluable series devoted to the music of William Byrd with this, the tenth volume and the first to appear on the Hyperion label. Andrew Carwood’s splendidly written and thoroughly researched notes give a wonderful glimpse of the intrigues and complex relationships between church and state at the time and serve to bring into focus much about Byrd which has, thus far, remained obscure.

That, however, is as nothing to the clarity he and his singers bring to the music. From the opening item Quis est homo … it is obvious that these singers have a love and passion for this music which transcends mere technical expertise or artistic sensitivity. They clearly relish every interlacing line, every delectable chord and every expressive nuance. Balance is exemplary and the selection of voices for each item shows a real awareness of the vocal characteristics of each singer. Take, for example the wonderful queenly elegance of Rebecca Outram, Caroline Trevor and Andrew Carwood himself as they sing the richly ornate Regina caeli, the profoundly confident quartet of Carys Lane, Cecilia Osmond, Jeremy Budd and Robert Macdonald in the self-assured In manus tuas, Domine, or the sheer exuberance of Lane, Outram, David Gould, Thomas Hobbs and Robert Evans in the vivacious Unam petii a Domino…. The Cardinall’s Musick is surely an ‘exaltation of larks’, nowhere more so in the scintillating setting of Psalm 150 (Laudibus in sanctis) with which the disc concludes.

The Cardinall’s Musick’s Byrd series is still very much alive and kicking and turning up performances of exquisite perfection.

Date: November 2006    

WILLIAM BYRD: LAUDIBUS IN SANCTIS (BYRD EDITION 10)

This programme of motets drawn from Byrd’s 1591 Cantiones Sacrae and 1605 Gradualia is the 10th volume on The Cardinall’s Musick’s Byrd Edition. Much of it, such as the Propers for the Eastertide Lady Mass, was presumably intended for illicit recusant services, and Andrew Carwood’s pure-toned and clear-textured one-to-a-part performances are remarkably successful in recreating something of the atmosphere that must have pervaded such occasions.

The somewhat restrained Easter Alleluias are a pointed reminder that for persecuted congregations, full-throated Paschal rejoicing would have been inappropriate, as well as potentially dangerous, while pieces such as the beautifully flowing three-part Regina caeli or the Compline motet In manus tuas have a delicate intimacy that makes them as suitable for domestic devotional context as for a liturgical one.

Date: November 2006    

THOMAS TALLIS: GAUDE GLORIOSA

Thomas Tallis’s career spanned the dangerous upheaval in the mid-16th century English church: first finding working in a priory in the final years before the dissolution of the monasteries, he died during the very English compromise achieved under Elizabeth.

Recorded during the composer’s 500th anniversary year, Andrew Carwood’s recording of some of Tallis’s most beautiful Latin settings captures the passion and devotion of the period. The Cardinall’s Musick sing with a vibrancy that makes Tallis’s musical feats of skilful audacity sound every bit as surprising and exciting as the would have done half a millennium ago. The monumental Gaude gloriosa takes well deserved centre-stage, but in its entirety this disc is a sublime tribute both to one of England’s greatest composers and to the skill and conviction of one of today’s finest ensembles.

Date: 2006    

YORK EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL

For gentleman performers of The Cardinall’s Musick, Monday night at York Minster was open-necked-shirt night. A concession to balmy temperatures, perhaps? More likely, the group’s director, Andrew Carwood, wanted no obstruction to impede any velvet throats. ‘Sing out’ seems his permanent directive. And so they did, sallying forth upon and exceptional programme of Tudor music for church and court in the lush Chapter House acoustic.

For the York Early Music Festival, dedicated this year to the theme of ‘dynastic strands’, this was the perfect attraction. Here was music written for five Tudor monarchs: music of different styles and religions, reflecting the 16th century’s upheavals. Henry VIII, of course, jumped in with a piece of his own, the direct and bouncy Pastime with good company, though our good company was mostly pyramids of ceremonial polyphony, sometime wrapped round the most forbidding words.

Take the line ‘Isacchar quoque Nazaphat necnon Ismaria’. This genealogical nugget would seem to defeat anyone’s genius. But Robert Fayrfax got through it; when your motet is commissioned by Henry VII’s wife, you donít walk away. The Cardinall’s in any case could make music out of a John Prescott speech. Clear tones; perfect intonation; an ideal balance between individual colour and an ensemble blend; emotional directness: Monday night found them on triumphant top form.

Date: 12 July 2006    

CONCERT: IL SIGLO D’ORO – WIGMORE HALL

Though I don’t imagine many of the Wigmore Hall’s early music audience spend too much time on the terraces, at least some of them seemed to grasp conductor Andrew Carwood’s introductory references to Paul the psychic octopus. By happy chance, less than 24 hours after Spain’s World Cup victory, this concert was devoted to the music of that country’s other, cultural golden age, half a millennium ago.

Carwood’s programme concentrated on music composed in honour of the Virgin Mary. The three best-known Spanish composers of the 16th century, Morales, Victoria and Guerrero, were all generously represented, but there were also settings by less familiar figures such as Vivanco, Esquivel and Lobo. It’s sheer delight to be immersed in such entrancingly beautiful music, with Victoria’s darker hued, more expressively intense vocal writing contrasting with the more open, less highly wrought textures of Guerrero and Esquivel, and the sparer directness of Morales.

The Cardinall’s Musick perform this music with consummate clarity, and not a trace of affectation or unnecessary embellishment. With just one singer to each of the four, five, six or eight parts, it was all perfectly scaled to the Wigmore Hall. One might have expected music composed for a church acoustic to seem undernourished in a concert setting, but there was never any suggestion of dryness; rather, the vivid immediacy of the sound only highlighted the group’s distinctive qualities, in which the characteristics of each singer are never homogenised into undifferentiated choral textures. Just occasionally one might have liked the enunciation to be a little more precise, but that’s nit-picking really; it was a beautifully conceived programme, beautifully presented.

Date: 12 July 2010    

CONCERT: KILKENNY ARTS FESTIVAL

Kilkenny 2010 Highlight: The Cardinall’s Musick’s stirring and illuminating programme of choral music by Tallis and Byrd in the Black Abbey.

The major musical event of the opening weekend of Kilkenny Arts Festival was Saturday’s concert of sacred music by two English composers, Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.

Tallis (c. 1505–85) is said to have been the teacher of Byrd (c. 1540–1623), and the two men became close friends and colleagues. Their shared sympathies and collaborations extended beyond the writing of music.

They were both Catholics at a time of religious upheavals. And in 1575, when Queen Elizabeth I granted them a patent for the printing of music and lined music paper, they promptly published a joint set of Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur (usually known as Cantiones sacrae) which they dedicated to her.

The Kilkenny concert was given by the English choir The Cardinall’s Musick, whose conductor, Andrew Carwood, offered succinct and suggestive spoken introductions to the music. The first half of the evening was devoted to Tallis, the second to Byrd. And from the start of Tallis’s splendidly celebratory Loquebantur variis linguis it was clear that this was to be an evening of compellingly-projected, full-toned, gorgeously resonant singing. It was the kind of evening which had one pinching oneself to check that such edifices of sound could be produced by such a small number of voices – the choir numbers 12, but its members also sang in smaller groupings.

Each half was carefully constructed with an eye to contrast, and the choir split for a number of the items, so that the sound of Gregorian chant could be heard from afar, effectively from around the corner for most listeners in the atmospheric setting of Kilkenny’s L-shaped Black Abbey.

Byrd is audibly the more modern-sounding of the two composers, with a rhythmic movement and a cadential thrust that place a clear stylistic distance between himself and his older colleague. But it was actually the works by Tallis which made the greater impression, in spite of the fact that Carwood and his singers showed that well-known English predilection for underplaying the sometimes extraordinary dissonant clashes that are such a feature of Tallis’s work.

Date: 10 August 2010    

GUERRERO: MISSA CONGRATULAMINI MIHI

Francisco Guerrero composed 18 mass settings, five of which were based on other composers’ works. Missa Congratulamini mihi is one of those so-called parody masses, using almost every morsel of Thomas Crecquillon’s setting of Mary Magdalene’s meeting with the risen Christ as source material for some part or other of the work.

The Cardinall’s Musick adds Crecquillon’s motet as an appendix to the five-part mass, and surrounds those two works with other settings by Guerrero sharing the Easter theme. Two motets develop the Easter story – Maria Magdalena et altera Maria is a straightforward narrative of Mary Magdalene’s visit to Christ’s tomb; Post Dies Octa describes Christ’s appearance to the disciples – while a couple of settings of the antiphon Regina coeli, a sumptuous eight-part Ave Maria, and Dum Esset Rex, in honour of Mary Magdalene, complete the collection. All are delivered with the combination of superb ensemble, and perfectly characterised vocal lines that is the persistent hallmark of this outstanding group; the sound is rich, full and gently resonant.

Date: 5 August 2010    

GUERRERO: MISSA CONGRATULAMINI MIHI

Was it in Holy Trinity Church, just around the corner from the Albert Hall, that I first heard The Cardinall’s Musick give a concert? It was many years ago, but I still recall the impact of an ensemble that was deeply immersed in vocal music of the Renaissance and performed it with exceptional vitality and piquancy.

The style seemed so enlivening when compared with more dogged approaches to polyphonic texture, and somehow the sheer inventiveness and emotional force of the music breathed with a new immediacy, sensibility and vibrancy.

Since those early days – The Cardinall’s Musick was formed in 1989 – Andrew Carwood has nurtured the group to its current status as a leading exponent of Renaissance music, retaining the essential quality of individual vocal timbres that contribute to a refined, characterful mix and with a polish that is second to none.

On this latest release, they devote their programme to the works of the Spanish composer Francisco Guerrero (1528–99), one of the few musicians, perhaps, to have been captured (twice) by pirates on a sea journey from Genoa to Marseilles. That snippet of information comes from Carwood’s typically intriguing liner notes, which put the music in context and give an insight into Guerrero’s far from trouble-free life.

Nevertheless, he was immensely prolific in his home town of Seville, where he was in charge of music at the cathedral from 1574. The Missa Congratulamini mihi is based on themes from the elaborate responsory of the same name (a setting of Mary Magdalene’s rejoicing after the Resurrection) by the Franco-Flemish composer Thomas Crecquillon.

That is also here as a useful point of reference, but, much more than that, the entire disc, with various shorter pieces as complements, is captivating in its fluency and expressive power.

Date: 13 August 2010    

Latin Church Music

This disc contains all the music left to us in a complete state by William Cornysh the elder, and in so doing draws attention to the difference between the two composers named William Cornysh – the father and the son. The father is the composer of the Latin church music in the sweeping pre-Reformation style: the son, the writer of pieces in English and courtly songs. David Skinner’s research, printed in the CD booklet, provides the evidence and makes the connection between the Cornysh Magnificat and two other setting of the same text by Edmund Turges and Henry Prentes which obviously use Cornysh’s work as their model.

The Cardinall’s have the angels on their side GRAMOPHONE

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