This disc must have lost a title somewhere along the line. True, the centrepiece is the Palestrina six-part Missa sine nomine in a version for voices and instruments surviving partly in the hand of J. S. Bach. But what the disc really offers is a brief examination of the repertoire of the Leipzig Stadtpfeifer, the town wind band consisting mainly of cornetts and sackbuts. By the time Bach came to the town in the 1720s standards were on the decline, but he still had plenty of use for the band, as the Palestrina and the other Bach work on this disc, the motet O Jesu Christ, mein's Lebens Licht (a choral-and-instrumental movement for which there are two versions, one of them clearly involving the Stadtpfeifer) demonstrates. The bulk of the recording, however, is made up of sonatas by Johann Pezel and Gottfried Reiche, repertoire which results from another of the duties of the Stadtpfeifer, that of performing twice daily from the tower of the town hall. Pezel joined the Leipzig band in 1670, while Reiche was a celebrated member in Bach's own day, but of the two it is Pezel who on this evidence was the livelier composer, Reiche's music sounding a touch austere by comparison. The programme is completed by a work by Bach's immediate predecessor at Leipzig, Johann Kuhnau, his old-style motet Tristis est anima mea making a good complement to the Palestrina Mass.
Concerto Palatino is a group which, unusually, takes cornetts and sackbuts as the starting-point for its activities, be they instrumental or choral, and a welcome arrival on the scene they make. Unlike those of Bach's day, playing-standards on these instruments have improved enormously in recent years, and it's a pleasure to hear them producing such attractively gentle yet clearly-defined tones as they do here. Only O Jesu Christ, whose independent instrumental parts are perhaps not so very idiomatic, causes them to lose their poise a little; for the rest of the time they play with ele-gance, sensitivity and admirable ease of movement.
No one is credited with leading the group, and this may explain a slight lack of directional moulding in the Palestrina, but the 13-strong choir contains some experienced soloists and the sheer beauty of sound produced by both voices and instruments is enough to make this disc a most attractive one.'