Dunstable’s career in the recording market has been strange. A few of his pieces have appeared repeatedly, while many others have been almost entirely ignored. This new CD does contain three well-known motets – Preco preheminencie, Veni veni and Albanus – but the rest are rarely performed. For some of the delicious antiphons, it is hard to see why: I was particularly struck by Salve regina mater mire, one of those pieces that sounds far more impressive than it looks on the page.
There are also some total novelties. The canonic Gloria was discovered very recently in Russia and has not yet been published: it is a massively inventive work that adds a substantial new dimension to our knowledge of Dunstable. And Descendi in ortum meum, though discovered and published a quarter of a century ago, surely stands as the latest known work of its composer: a magnificent piece that builds an entirely new kind of edifice with the materials of his characteristic style.
Most impressive of all, though, is the Mass, Rex seculorum, which ends the disc. This may or may not be by Dunstable – which is probably why it has never been recorded. Whoever the composer, though, it is a key work in the history of the polyphonic mass cycle, one of the very few cycles that prefigure the design and structure of the continental cycles later in the century. And it is a work brimming with invention.
Those readers who know the scholarship of Margaret Bent will have no difficulty in seeing her hand in the assembly of this fascinating programme, to which she adds a lucid and informative booklet-note. In line with her authoritative view, the composer’s name is spelt ‘Dunstaple’; the requirements of Gramophone’s data-base dictate that we spell it the old way.
Several reviewers have said over the past few years that the Orlando Consort sound better every time they go into a recording studio. Here they have a wonderfully forward style that beautifully matches the music and helps the listener to understand why Dunstable achieved such an enormous reputation on the continental mainland. If they are occasionally a touch rough, these are classic performances that will be hard to challenge in the years to come.'