As I noted when reviewing the first volume of this set (12/01), Gombert’s Magnificats have long been regarded as a summation of his art, and I agree with Peter Phillips that his discography could never be complete without them. As with the Tallis Scholars, consistency is one of Gombert’s hallmarks; so much so that my review of Volume 1 could easily stand for this one.

Gombert is at his most striking when he has many voices to play with; this was true of the third Magnificat on the previous recording, and here it is especially the concluding six-voice setting that caught my ear: there is an emphatic, culminatory force in the increasingly dense false relations towards the end of the cycle. The singers clearly understand this, and seem to raise their game in response. That the first complete recording of the cycle has such poise and elegance surely makes it indispensable.

It may be worth noting an aspect on which I had not previously commented: Phillips introduces a plainchant antiphon before and after each Magnificat (always the same one both times, in accordance with the liturgical custom of Vespers). This is not so much a sop to performance-practice ‘authenticity’ (a notion with which Phillips has never had much patience) as a convenient way of breaking up the polyphony, of cleansing the ear’s palate, as it were. To my taste, a lengthier period of silence between settings would have been just as effective, but perhaps I’m just being an incorrigible modernist. If Phillips’s solution sounds a little ‘churchy’ to me, this is church music, after all.