Rating: 2/5
Review:
Poor performances
I'm afraid I didn't get on with this set at all. Brilliant Classics have produced some really top-quality boxes of music but sadly this isn't one of them.
The repertoire is wonderful, with great mass settings by giants of polyphony: Dufay, Ockeghem, Josquin, Gombert, Brumel and Isaac. These are all works of immense depth and consummate compositional skill which have been wonderfully recorded by some of the world's very finest ensembles over the last 20 years or so. These recordings date from between 1971 and 1988 and they have not aged well.
For polyphony to really shine a choir needs to be well balanced with at least a modicum of blend between the voices, and vibrato has to be kept to an absolute minimum to allow the intricate harmonies and resonant sonorities to ring out and sound true. Neither is the case here: the voices don't gel together well at all and vibrato (sometimes to the point of excessive wobbling) often obscures tuning. The effect is muddy and uninspiring, and for me completely robs some of the world's greatest and loveliest music of all its beauty and passion.
I am sorry to be so critical, but performances like these simply won't do any more and, although this is a very cheap box, I can't recommend it. There are great recordings by The Tallis Scholars, The Clerk's Group and Henry's Eight among others of works by these composers and it's well worth spending a little more on them - they are what polyphony is all about. This isn't.
(If you are looking for a place to start with these composers, I'd recommend The Tallis Scholars' Flemish Masters discs - a fantastic budget-price 2CD set including masses by Ockeghem, Isaac and Brumel.
And for a really fine and ridiculously cheap Brilliant Classics box of polyphony you can't go wrong with Tallis's complete works sung by Chapelle du Roi.)
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