Emigres can't win. Often disowned by their native country, they are accepted somewhat quizically in their adopted home. Peter Philips has been ignored equally in England, which as a Catholic he fled in early manhood, and in Belgium where he eventually settled, dying in 1628. This selection of his sacred music aims to set the record straight.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Philips's music seems slightly out of place in Hyperion's ''English Orpheus'' series. These motets, scored mainly for five and eight voices, reveal a conservative, competent, though not always imaginative composer, whose debt to continental masters is clearly audible. The appearance of an eight-voice collection in 1613 is slightly ironic, for Philips's excessive reliance on cori spezzati gets a bit predictable. The five-part works show more initiative.
Unfortunately, these performances lack the verve that might have carried the music along. The blending of choirs and continuo is unconvincing; balance favours the trebles whose erratic phrasing, pronunciation (e.g. ''fastidiosos'' for ''fastidiosus'') and, occasionally, tone prove distracting (long held notes are particularly insecure). Nor are matters helped by the strangely top-heavy and unresonant recording (strange for a cathedral acoustic!). The most successful piece in the collection, O crux splendidior, dispenses with continuo altogether; this results in more careful, controlled singing that responds to the more concentrated expression of which Philips is sometimes capable.'