The insert-notes announce this disc as containing ''recent discoveries and first recordings on period instruments'' but neglect to tell us which are which. That's a pity, because in fact some of these pieces come into neither category. However, as far as I am able to establish, all the vocal works are new to the catalogue (though Audite principes has been recorded in a very similar version by Hyperion—12/90), while of the instrumental pieces the Canzon XVII a 12 has not been recorded before and the Sonata XVIII a 14, the Sonata XX a 22 and the Canzona in echo duodecimi toni are 'firsts' on period instruments. I fully expect to be corrected by someone, but I wish that EMI, having mentioned it, had made it clear in the first place.
Still, more important than all that is the fact that this is a nicely planned selection of vocal and instrumental numbers by the greatest master of the Venetian polychoral style, given under the direction of a conductor who has a great deal of experience in this repertoire. Here he chooses to explore the timbral beauties of the music rather than noisily playing one choir off against another, or probing over-insistently for other types of textural detail. Consequently this is a mellow, relaxed set of performances in which the sound is never forced, whether a piece be in four parts or 22. The solo voices (the Taverner Choir only appears in one piece) are treated rather as if they were just so many more instruments, with Parrott being content most of the time to leave them well embedded in the overall sound. If things can seem a trifle impersonal as a result, there are benefits to such a laid-back approach, particularly in the way in which the more massive numbers acquire an impressive ease, possessed of all the latent power of a smooth-running Rolls Royce. Just like one of those vehicles, this disc is neither thrilling nor radical—but it is beautifully made.'