This is The Brabant Ensemble’s third disc for Hyperion. Under their director, eminent musicologist Dr Stephen Rice, they continue to excavate jewels of the sixteenth-century choral repertoire which have until now remained under-performed and under-represented in music history. Their natural and instinctive performing style, which foregrounds the essential vocal qualities of this music, unlike the instrumental tone of other early music choirs, brings these beautiful and complex works abundantly to life. Gombert’s motets are the heart of his writing and this selection of them allows the range of his musical accomplishments to fully emerge. Often seen as written in penance for heinous crimes committed by the composer, many of them are settings of various texts of penitence, sorrow and yearning for deliverance from punishment. Images such as the ‘hellish lake’ in Tribulatio et angustia are dramatically explored. Also on this disc are motets for the adulation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which surprisingly demonstrate an especially intensified and dissonant musical style, showing the almost erotic level of devotion suggested in some of the greatest art of this period.GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2008; GRAMOPHONE EDITOR'S CHOICE 'It's one of very few discs of this repertoire I've been happy to play in its entirety, and then several times since. This is in part a tribute to Gombert … but also to The Brabant Ensemble and Stephen Rice … by encouraging an unusually individual and carefully balanced vocal response, he avoids the pitfalls of relentless consistency and arid elision … there is a welcome and (in this music) novel belief in the power of voices as voices … try the sopranos halfway through Hortus conclusus es for erotic Mariolatry at its most disconcertingly sensual. Arise, make haste, as they sing, and hear this music' (Gramophone)'… The sheer quality of his music. These 10 motets are notable for their richly glowing sonorities, their disciplined counterpoints, their intensity of expression and, most of all, their careful tailoring of music to text. There's the darkly erotic intensity of Hortus conclusus es, the angst-ridden, pentitential Tribulatio et angustia … The singing is meticulously balanced and blended, Stephen Rice shaping and pacing each work with exquisite judgement' (Sunday Times)'The Brabant Ensemble's exploration of the "forgotten generation" of composers between Josquin and Palestrina is reviving an abundance of unwarrantedly neglected sacred polyphony. Judging by this splendid selection of motets, Gombert's neglect is particularly flagrant. In penitential pieces, such as Aspice Domine and Tribulatio et angustia, his lavish use of dissonance within a smooth-flowing yet intricately imitative style creates an atmosphere of almost unbearably intense and bitter anguish, whether contemplating a city laid waste or beseeching rescue from a foetid quagmire … These shapely and well-paced performances do full justice to Gombert's outstanding talent' (The Daily Telegraph)

• Wykonawca Rice Stephen
• Data premiery 2007-01-01
• Nośnik CD

The 1604 Royal May Day celebrations – the ‘Proms in the Park’ of their day – headlined with a madrigal by Martin Peerson. His career can be traced through posts at Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral, and his powerful patrons enabled a considerable quantity of music to be printed and published. Today little remains. These fifteen Latin motets survive in a single, incomplete source. Their performance here – the first for some three hundred years – is possible thanks to a pioneering reconstruction (by Richard Rastall of Antico Edition) of the missing voice part. Despite their pre-Reformation Latin texts (at a time where few institutions were permitted such Popery) and Peerson’s 1606 conviction for recusancy, the composer’s evident position at the heart of the new Anglican establishment confirms the overall esteem in which he was held. And the music more than lives up to this reputation – harmonies of sustained intensity and an intricate understanding of the contemporary imitative technique lend the collection a rare cohesion and give testimony to a man of immense compassion and faith. The Ex Cathedra Consort – the twelve-voice ‘soloistic’ ensemble from Ex Cathedra – gives performances every bit as good as the group’s enviable reputation would predict.'The performances are shapely and expressive, leaving nothing to be desired in technical polish. Connoisseurs will rejoice to have this rare music brought to life for all to hear' (American Record Guide)'Jeffrey Skidmore's reading pushes the unique structure of Peerson's paragraphs into the foreground: large-scale dynamic contouring, leisurely tempos and subtle shifts in balance create a spacious framework in which the composer's large structures emerge. The Ex Cathedra Consort triumphs beautifully over the vocal challenges of this music with its pellucid upper voices, restrained yet robust basses, and attention to textual detail … this reconstruction of Peerson, enhanced by excellent sound engineering, manages to reveal a master at work' (BBC Music Magazine) 'this recording is definitely worth listening to. It affords us what we may assume is a good overview of the works of a skilled composer, who clearly absorbed a range of influences but was not afraid to put his own personal mark on his music, and as such is an uncommon treat' (International Record Review) 'For all their comparative youthfulness, these are mature voices in the ECC, complemented by agile and well-controlled technique. As is typical with Skidmore-directed performances, the Latin is shaded with pronunciation coloured with the country's local accent … just one example of these performers' thoughtful preparation and response' (Birmingham Post) 'This recording is one of the most exciting discs of Renaissance sacred music to have appeared in recent years … These fine motets show that he was a highly accomplished composer of choral polyphony with a strongly individual flavour, which uses imaginatively understated means to pack a considerable emotional punch' (The Daily Telegraph)'Tuning, balance, and ensemble are all excellent, and Peerson's often complex, even convoluted polyphony emerges with a commendable clarity that is a tribute to both director and singers. Add to that Hyperion's customary outstanding engineering, and you have a splendid disc of unusual repertoire that fully deserves widespread attention and success' (Fanfare, USA)

• Wykonawca Various Artists
• Data premiery 2006-03-07
• Nośnik CD

The Binchois Consort presents a disc which demonstrates the beauty and grandeur of the music performed daily in princely chapels of fifteenth-century England. It illustrates the sheer variety of types of singing, some of it virtuosic in its brilliance. Specifically it offers sacred ceremonial pieces written either for Henry V himself, as King, or to invoke the saintly patron of the House of Lancaster, John of Bridlington, as well as a selection of intricate motets. Scholarly notes by Philip Weller place this music firmly in its historical context, and the Binchois performances represent the highest standard of early music singing of the present day. Every nuance is considered and each phrase is relished in this immaculately polished disc.

• Wykonawca Binchois Consort
• Data premiery 2011-06-01
• Nośnik CD

Although well known and highly regarded in his lifetime and in the years following his death in 1596, the music of Philippe Rogier is largely known (especially to English audiences) through one motet alone, Laboravi in gemitu meo. But there is much to explore in this genuinely underrated composer. Philippe Rogier was one of a long line of Flemish composers who worked at the Spanish court. The high regard that the musically astute Philip II held for Rogier was not misplaced, because he is one of the most fascinating and rewarding composers of the late sixteenth century: extraordinarily versatile, capable of plumbing the emotional depths in his penitential works (of which there are many) as well as exalting the heights in his festive music. The main work on this disc includes the parody mass Missa Ego sum qui sum, based on a motet by Gombert. It must rank as one of the finest settings of the Mass ordinary of the late sixteenth century, dazzling in its invention and sheer beauty. Gombert had been one of the most influential composers of the post-Josquin period, developing a style of composition based on continuous imitation and almost relentless expressivity with an extraordinarily high level of dissonance. Rogier’s Mass seems to be a tribute to this style. Two twelve-part accompanied motets are recorded here, pointing to a well-developed polychoral tradition at the Spanish court. The remaining motets on this recording represent different facets of the composer: desperate cries in the pentitential works and sheer exuberance in Cantantibus organis, a motet in honour of St Cecilia. The much admired choir of King’s College London and their director David Trendell appear in their Hyperion debut.

• Wykonawca Various Artists
• Data premiery 2010-01-01
• Nośnik CD

Thanks to the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, which regularly publishes the more obscure gems of French music, we can enjoy these religious works of Pierre de Bouteiller. The present recording includes, in addition to the Missa pro defunctis, Pierre Bouteiller’s Motets for voice, two bass viols, and continuo, confirming the fact that viols were indeed happily coupled with the human voice in French repertoire.

• Wykonawca Les Voix Humaines
• Data premiery 2005-01-01
• Nośnik CD

Tracklista:1. Motets (2) for chorus, Op. 74  16:362. Fest- und Gedenksprüche (3) for double chorus, Op. 109 10:153. Motets (3) for chorus, Op. 110 9:354. Missa Canonica for chorus, WoO posth. 18: Sanctus 3:285. Missa Canonica for chorus, WoO posth. 18: Benedictus 2:166. Missa Canonica for chorus, WoO posth. 18: Agnus Dei 5:407. Motets (2) for chorus, Op. 29 12:53

• Wykonawca RIAS Kammerchor
• Data premiery 2009-02-02
• Nośnik CD

Adrian Chandler’s and La Serenissima’s 10th release for Avie – coinciding with the label’s 10th Anniversary – has all the hallmarks that have made the Vivaldi specialists one of the best-selling and acclaimed period-instrument bands performing today. Adrian’s erudition and his ensemble’s crowd-pleasing performances combine to produce recordings that are at once popular and enlightening. Venice by Night evokes an era of the Venetian Republic when the arts flourished, attracting audiences from all over Europe including scores of royalty. Feeding the tourist trade, the resident composers revelled in creating everything from grand operas and serenatas, virtuoso concertos and sinfonias, motets and gondoliers’ ballads. As with the chart-topping Vivaldi: The French Connection 2 (AV 2218) which featured the world-premiere recording of the flute concerto Il Gran Mogol, Adrian has once again unearthed numerous works from this period that are recorded for the first time.

• Wykonawca Lawson Mhairi , Munday Simon , Whelan Peter , La Serenissima
• Data premiery 2012-06-01
• Nośnik CD

Tracklista: 1. Alv2. The Metamorphosis Melody3. Spellbound4. The Tide5. A Poet's Prayer6. Forlorn7. Kong Valemons Kamp8. Goodbye9. Forvandlingen10. Motets Makt11. My Re-creation

• Wykonawca Midnattsol
• Data premiery 2013-07-01
• Nośnik CD

The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, an exclusive Chandos artist, here presents its third release on the label. Established in the 1670s, the choir has a long and distinguished tradition of performing religious music and here offers distinguished interpretations of sacred works by Orlande de Lassus. Of its most recent release, Hear My Words: Choral Classics from St John’s (CHSA 5085), The Telegraph wrote: ‘The boy treble voices bring lustre and freshness to the sonority and the singing throughout is stirring and polished.’ Lassus was a prolific and versatile composer and the most famous musician of his day. By the age of twenty-one, he had been appointed Director of Music at the church of St John Lateran in Rome, an impressive appointment for one so young. More than 2000 works by Lassus survive: Latin settings of masses, canticles, motets, passions, litanies, and hymns, as well as secular pieces in Italian, French, and German. Lassus was charismatic and gregarious. He was also bipolar, however, a condition that caused him personal unhappiness, but which also accounted for some of the more original and startling passages in his music. The pieces on this recording represent only a small part of his enormous output: nineteen of the 750-odd surviving motets; two of the one hundred Magnificat settings; and three of his dozen purely instrumental works. It is a small sample, but it shows a composer whose formidable technique, kaleidoscopic ear for texture, and matchless word settings made him the darling of the musical High Renaissance in Western Europe. The majority of Lassus’s motets were settings of religious texts. Ecce nunc benedicite Dominum is one of two seven-voice pieces chosen for this recording, and its rich texture allows Lassus to explore appealing vocal combinations without breaking into double-choir cliché. Veni in hortum meum places the listener in the gently seductive world of the Songs of Songs – that ‘sensuously exciting and baffling’ book of the Bible, to quote the English novelist and poetA.S. Byatt. The two Magnificat settings on this recording were composed at least twenty years apart. The Magnificat ‘O che vezzosa aurora’ dates from the mid-1580s. A significant proportion of this work is based directly on a six-voice madrigal by the Modenese composer Orazio Vecchi (1550 – 1605), which was published around the same time. Lassus’s own setting, however, is sunny and optimistic in six-voice sections, and respectively robust and reflective in the three- and four-voice sections.

• Wykonawca His Majestys Sagbutts , Choir of St. John's College
• Data premiery 2011-01-10
• Nośnik CD

Tracklista:  Thomas Tallis 1. Honor, virtus et potestas  William Byrd 2. Ave verum corpus  Orlando Gibbons 3. See, see the Word is incarnate  William Croft 4. We will rejoice in Thy Salvation  Maurice Greene 5. Lord, let me know mine end  William Boyce 6. O where shall wisdom be found?  Charles Villiers Stanford 7. 3 Motets, Op. 38  Hubert Parry 8. I was glad when they said unto me  William Henry Harris 9. Bring us, O Lord God  Herbert Howells 10. Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks  Kenneth Leighton 11. Let all the world in every corner sing

• Wykonawca Canterbury Cathedral Choir
• Data premiery 2018-01-01
• Nośnik CD