Many people will be glad to learn that some CDs are beginning to come slightly cheaper; and those who love English polyphony of the sixteenth century will be even more glad to know that Pro Cantione Antiqua's record of ''Renaissance Masterpieces'', priced at £ 7.99 and clearly aimed at the widest possible audience, is largely taken up by works of Tallis.
Their performance of the 40-voice motet Spem in alium is strong, confident and enthusiastic to the point of rising nearly a semitone in the course of the piece. It is sometimes difficult to remember that this work is not only a tour de force of polyphonic intricacy but also something of a formal masterpiece; and the performance here, while it may not always take the most refined account of the music's details, certainly has a powerful cumulative effect. In the two sets of Lamentations the singing displays all the qualities we have come to know in Pro Cantione Antiqua: some extremely fine voices, musicians who have considerable experience of the repertory (and particularly of works such as these), but occasionally also the lack of a firm director to tidy up the messy corners and hold the reins when dynamic levels get out of hand.
I suppose that it is something of the 'mystery' associated with the piece we call Allegri's Miserere that makes it good merchandise even though it has relatively little purely musical substance. Certainly the embellishments and the famous high C belong to the eighteenth-century additions to the work, perhaps from the hand of the deadeningly prolific Pitoni (d. 1743); it seems a mistake to include it on a record billed as being of renaissance music. Pro Cantione Antiqua give a well-controlled but straightforward reading which rather emphasizes the work's heavily repetitive nature.
The Tallis Scholars, on the other hand, had the bright idea of giving the piece a little more colour by having the 'low' verses sung close up but putting the ensemble for the 'high' verses at the other end of Merton College Chapel to give it a rather more varied and mystical air. You still can't disguise the repetition, though this performance is more compelling.
But their issue is valuable for the two other pieces whose titles on the CD package are no larger than they are at the head of this review: one of the most famous works of the sixteenth century, Palestrina's Mass Papae Marcelli, and an extremely little known but absolutely glorious motet by the little known English composer William Mundy, Vox Patris caelestis. This last is from that wonderful generation in English music during the reign of Queen Mary, when for five splendid years musicians could return to the old Catholic rites and compose music that represented a beautiful Indian summer of the early Tudor choral style, music's answer to Perpendicular architecture. It is a rich, varied piece lasting almost 20 minutes, sung with vigour and refinement; the performance is one to be valued.
With so many recordings of Palestrina's Mass Papae Marcelli available on LP, perhaps just two things should be said of Peter Phillips's performance: the voices sound extremely English, which to my ears is a mistake; and Phillips has an unusually low-intensity approach to the work, which is to say that he keeps the speeds mostly quite slow, concentrates on the clearest possible diction, and allows the work to open up of its own accord. I'm not sure whether I like this; but there can be no question that it represents an original approach to the work.'