Pulchra es is the third of Gombert's 10 surviving Masses to be recorded for CD, and it does no more than its two predecessors to dissuade me that his peculiar genius was most intensely fired by expressively specific motet texts. Marian texts seem to have held a special place in Gombert's head and heart, as the Tallis Scholars show with their passionate advocacy of eight Magnificats (Gimell, 12/01; 12/02). The approach of The Sound and the Fury could hardly be more different. With one voice per part, flowing tempi and restrained, even relaxed, singing, they follow the example of the Hilliard Ensemble's ECM disc (4/06), and what a refined example it is. Austrian Radio has captured the intimate, brocaded quality of Gombert's polyphony in an aptly resonant acoustic. Doing so in two days of concerts was perhaps a mistake, as suggested by momentary but persistent pitch insecurity that a studio session might have eliminated. If relaxed is the aim, wispy is often the result.

This is especially true at the upper end of the vocal register, but none of the first three entries of “Et in terra pax” in the Credo quite land on the notes. Around 11'30" is an extraordinary sequence of scales outdoing the end of Part 1 of Mahler's Eighth for exuberance - only even fewer of the notes are audible here. A more spacious tactus might make time move faster, allowing us to focus on the direction of the polyphony rather than its short-term imitations; as it is, one sometimes sympathises with the poor booklet-note writer when he complains that “Gombert's music lacks definition, lacks clarity and transparency of sound”. It ain't necessarily so.