COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Harmonia Mundi
WORKS: Tudor Music for Advent & Christmas
PERFORMER: Stile antico
CATALOGUE NO: HMU 807517
Tallis’s incomplete Mass Puer natus est is the key item on this CD, a work of intricate grandeur weaving seven voice-parts in music of mesmerising beauty and wonder. Here’s an exceptional performance by the young award-winning British ensemble Stile antico, who work without a conductor and seem all the more sensitised and focused for it. Robert White’s glowingly affirmative Magnificat is the single longest piece here, and again highlights the choir’s outstanding technical aptitude and warmly expressive instincts. Terry Blain