Virgin and Child: Music from the Baldwin Partbooks, Vol 2
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Robert White, Thomas Tallis, Robert Fayrfax, John Sheppard, John Taverner
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Signum
Magazine Review Date: 05/2017
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 75
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: SIGCD474
![SIGCD474. Virgin and Child: Music from the Baldwin Partbooks, Vol 2](https://reviews.azureedge.net/gramophone/media-thumbnails/virgin_and_child.jpg)
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Ave Dei patris filia |
Robert Fayrfax, Composer
Contrapunctus Owen Rees, Conductor Robert Fayrfax, Composer |
Verbum caro factum est |
John Sheppard, Composer
Contrapunctus John Sheppard, Composer Owen Rees, Conductor |
Gaude gloriosa Dei mater |
Thomas Tallis, Composer
Contrapunctus Owen Rees, Conductor Thomas Tallis, Composer |
Magnificat |
Thomas Tallis, Composer
Contrapunctus Owen Rees, Conductor Thomas Tallis, Composer |
Videte miraculum |
Thomas Tallis, Composer
Contrapunctus Owen Rees, Conductor Thomas Tallis, Composer |
Mater Christi sanctissima |
John Taverner, Composer
Contrapunctus John Taverner, Composer Owen Rees, Conductor |
Regina caeli |
Robert White, Composer
Contrapunctus Owen Rees, Conductor Robert White, Composer |
Tota pulchra es |
Robert White, Composer
Contrapunctus Owen Rees, Conductor Robert White, Composer |
Author: Alexandra Coghlan
With only eight tracks, this doesn’t look like your average disc of polyphony. But then this is anything but average polyphony: structurally these are some of the most breathtaking works of their era, the musical equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals. The opening track – Tallis’s Gaude gloriosa Dei mater – is a 20 minute marvel, unfolding in massive contrapuntal arches that need such control and precision of pacing if they are not to collapse. Owen Rees’s instinct for long-form structures is unerring, making sense not only of the Tallis but also of the disc’s two large-scale antiphons: Sheppard’s ecstatic Verbum caro and Tallis’s Videte miraculum, where a lovely sense of pulse and movement underpins even the most static of harmonic passages.
The choral sound is distinctive. Astringent countertenors pierce through sweet, rounded sopranos, and the whole is anchored by a wonderful breadth in the basses. With comparatively small numbers there’s greater muscularity here than, say, The Sixteen, which is particularly well suited to the earlier works – the Fayrfax and the austere beauty of Taverner’s Mater Christi. Just occasionally you get a flicker of shrillness in the upper voices in this high-lying repertoire, a glimpse of the furious technical paddling required beneath the surface to keep these lines afloat, but it’s a small quibble. Contrapunctus remain king in a very crowded market place.
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