A disc of chant according to the rite of Salisbury is a welcome addition to the current repertoire of chant recordings. The choice of material should meet with general approval: the music for Midnight Mass, including the troped Kyrie, the singular troped Old Testament lesson chanted by two alternating tenors and the sequence, sung robustly with a merry accompaniment of bells. In addition, we have four of the best-loved hymns for Christmas Day: the singers achieve variety in the performance of these by ringing the changes on the different timbres—tenors, bass/baritones, solo cantors in alternation with each other and with the full choir. All this is positive and good. So, too, are the sleeve-notes, which give enough of the essential historical background for a clear introduction to the rite and to the service itself.
One major problem faced the choir: what was to be the general style of performance? Singing from a freshly-edited version, based on sixteenthcentury sources (with a few subtle changes of underlay), were they to opt for a flashback of 'authenticity', or for a more personal, contemporary and expressive interpretation? On the side of authenticity, so much is known about sixteenthcentury chant that they could have had an absolute field day. In the event, they tipped the scales rather more in favour of their own twentieth-century musical instincts, avoiding all the juicy proparoxytones and eschewing the more characteristically slow tempos described by writers of the period. Equal notes, repercussion and vigorous tone are by no means the whole story.'