This disc presents a selection of works from the Chirk Castle part-books, a fascinating collection of devotional music from the Tudor period that remained hidden in the castle library for three hundred years.
The Chirk manuscripts contain works for unaccompanied voices as well as verse anthems and services, scored for solo voices, chorus and organ. This recording focuses on the unaccompanied items, presenting for the first time a selection of the ‘full’ services and anthems found in the manuscripts, including seven unique to the Chirk collection.

The Gesualdo Six literally made its name with performances of Carlo Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsories, but that's not the British vocal consort's only specialty. Each of the singers was trained in the English choral tradition, and sacred works of the 16th and 17th century are close to their hearts. This 2018 Hyperion release is a brief survey of motets by Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, Thomas Tomkins, John Sheppard, Robert White, John Dunstaple, Thomas Morley, John Taverner, William Cornysh, Orlando Gibbons, and Robert Parsons, which represent the changing theological and liturgical aspects of English religion in the Renaissance. The ensemble, conducted by Owain Park, sings with evenly blended tones and an extraordinary harmonic richness, notwithstanding the assignment of one voice to a part and the exposed polyphony that sometimes creates an austere effect. Also quite noticeable are the cross-relations that add poignant dissonances to the counterpoint, as in Tallis' Loquebantur variis linguis, Taverner's Quemadmodum, Gibbons' O Lord, in thy wrath rebuke me not, and Parsons' Deliver me from mine enemies. This album was recorded in Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge, where The Gesualdo Six gave its first performances, and the sound is enhanced by vibrant acoustics that give the group a radiant aural halo.

To mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of Tallis, here are his biggest and best church compositions, performed in its customary high style by the Oxford Camerata under Jeremy Summerly (whose Fauré Requiem remains one of Naxos's all-time bestsellers). Tallis's youthful motet Salve intemerata is among the longest single-movement works of the 16th century, but it is Spem in alium, a work of Tallis's maturity, that overshadows any other English piece of the period, including those of his great contemporary, William Byrd. Scored for 40 independent voices, it is symphonic in proportion and resplendent in this surround-sound version.

Few ensembles are as difficult to write about as the incomparable Tallis Scholars. Inevitably, you just string together an array of superlatives and hope that other reviewers haven't gushed about the same attributes using the same words in precisely the same order. The ensemble's recording of the Christmas Mass and the antiphon Ave Dei patris filia marks both its fourth recording of works by Renaissance master Thomas Tallis and one of Gimell's last albums to be made during an unhappy affiliation with Universal Classics. (The label has since reverted to independent status, distributed in the United States by Harmonia Mundi.) As has been the case with other Tallis Scholars projects, the singers have rediscovered missing manuscripts and have put together the first modern performance editions of both of these works. Their complete mastery of their chosen subject, combining keen scholarship and transcendent beauty, makes this a radiant recording. The clarity and luminescent tone that conductor Peter Phillips achieves with his singers are simply superb. The recording, made at their frequent locale of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Norfolk, is a faithful one–but don't miss any opportunity to hear them live.

As exclusive Chandos artists, the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge here presents its second release. The first CD, of choral music by Howells (CHAN10587), was released to rave reviews in March this year. Choir and Organ wrote: ‘There is musicianship here of a rare and moving kind.’ This new release of popular choral classics should meet with a similar reception while at the same time appealing to a wider audience.

Turn down the lights and get out your joss-sticks for this one: a selection of sixteenth-century Tenebrae music for Holy Week, among the most evocative parts of the liturgy. Since they had already made successful recordings of the Brumel, Tallis and White, it was a good idea for The Tallis Scholars to add new recordings of Tenebrae settings by Alfonso Ferrabosco the Elder and Palestrina. As Peter Phillips points out in his brief note, the only textual feature they have in common is their all ending with the passage “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum”. Otherwise the texts that the various composers selected from the Lamentations of Jeremiah are quite different; but all show an intensity and a devotional power that work cumulatively to produce a remarkably satisfying disc. And it is endlessly fascinating to hear the different approaches to these anguished texts.

English composer Thomas Tallis witnessed dramatic changes of religion under four monarchs, and his career accordingly represents the development of polyphonic church music in Renaissance England. Along with his student and fellow Roman Catholic, William Byrd, Tallis was one of the earliest composers to publish music under royal patent in England, and his works demonstrated the shifting doctrines and styles of liturgy in the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. This 2017 Obsidian release features one piece with a text by Henry VIII's sixth and last wife, Katherine Parr, which gives the album its title, though the mix of Roman Catholic and Anglican pieces on the program suggests that "songs of Reformation" may be seen as one-sided. In any case, the performances by the vocal ensemble Alamire and the viol consort Fretwork put the emphasis on Tallis and his varied output, rather than on the theological preferences of royalty. The result is a well-balanced portrait of Tallis, and his choral music is given transparent textures and clear diction by the 14-voice choir, which maintains independence of parts while offering an evenly blended tone.

The four coronations of the twentieth century were enormous and extravagant. Replete with festive pageantry, these ceremonies were joyful celebrations of British music, employing tremendous forces. Choirs from across London and beyond were marshalled to provide a chorus of over 400 voices; a full-size symphony orchestra was squeezed into Westminster Abbey, whilst bands of fanfare trumpeters led the pomp and celebration.

Coupling powerful interpretations with path-breaking scholarship, the choir Contrapunctus presents music by the best-known composers as well as unfamiliar masterpieces. Directed by Owen Rees, a specialist in music of the 16th and 17 centuries, the group presents imaginative programmes revealing previously undiscovered musical treasures and throwing new light on familiar works.

This disc is supposed to hurt. Just look at the program: it starts with Crumb's Black Angels for electric string quartet, a work that is the aural equivalent of Coppola's Apocalypse Now, and ends with Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8, a work that is either the aural equivalent of a monument to the victims of war and fascism written in the ruins of Dresden or the musical equivalent of a suicide note written before the composer joined the Communist Party. With the spooky and evocative performances of Thomas Tallis Spem in Alium, Istvan Marta's Doom. A Sigh, and Charles Ives' There They Are!, this disc is so painful it could be the soundtrack for an unmade Kubrick movie. The question is, is this disc supposed to hurt so much? The Kronos Quartet is a harsh and aggressive ensemble with an angular approach to rhythm and structure and an overwhelming need to assert its individual and collective identity.

Ten English composers set the Latin text of the Lamentations of Jeremiah in the mid-16th century, in the reigns both of the Catholic Queen Mary and the Protestant Elizabeth I. Precise details are hard to establish of when works were performed, as Andrew Carwood explains in an illuminating note to this disc, but there seems little doubt that Tallis, though a Catholic, wrote his masterpiece for Elizabeth. The repeated final lines, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, turn to the Lord your God”, unforgettable once heard, have a dark resonance here, thanks to the sonorous basses of the Cardinall’s Musick (Robert Macdonald, Simon Whiteley). The rest of this fine recording draws on music from across Tallis’s career, with English and Latin settings (Sancte Deus, Te Deum, Come, Holy Ghost and more). The singers reach the highest standards.

The 16 voices of the British choir Stile Antico have a reputation for perfect blend and for programs that go beyond the favorites generally essayed by the similarly sized British choir the Sixteen. That's what's in this collection of motets (and the chanson Mille regretz) united by their connection to the Hapsburg court. It may be surprising to see Thomas Tallis under that rubric, but as the informative booklet points out, he makes the cut due to the marriage of Philip II of Spain to Mary Tudor. As that suggests, and as might be expected from a collection of pieces spanning a century, the Hapsburg factor does little to unite these pieces, even if the Emperor Maximilian does get name-checked at one point. Instead, this is simply a collection of intriguing Renaissance works that are generally beyond the ones normally heard.

This recording has a huge advantage over most of its rivals for the attention of Tallis listeners: the wonderful acoustics of Winchester Cathedral. In this magnificent space, the soaring lines and resplendent harmonies of Tallis's greatest masterpieces find sympathetic resonance, resulting in a heightened dramatic presence that takes the music beyond earthly confines. Of course, beyond the exceptional quality of the writing, credit must go to the phenomenal men and boys of Winchester Cathedral Choir. Where, even in England, does one find trebles who sing with more assuredness, musicality, and beauty of tone? With a repertoire including "In ieiunio et fletu," "Salvator mundi," "In manus tuas," "The Lamentations of Jeremiah," "O nata lux," and the unbelievable 40-part motet "Spem in alium," this is the Tallis disc to own if you're buying only one.