Rating: 5/5
Review:
Another beauty from the Hilliard Ensemble
This is a really fine disc of church music from three of England's finest composers of the 16th Century. It is fabulously beautiful and chosen from the last decades of the reign of Henry VIII to illustrate the rapidly changing religious practice of those times and its effect on the music written for worship, making a varied and interesting programme, consisting of Tye's Missa Sine nomine interspersed with very fine motets by Tallis and Sheppard.
Whether or not you like this disc depends on whether you like the distinctive sound of the Hilliard ensemble. I love it and think this is one of their loveliest discs - it reminds me of their wonderful disc of Tallis's Lamentations and Four Voice Mass, which has been a favourite of mine for many, many years. They sing at a low pitch, with the top line taken by David James's distinctive, plangent countertenor and the recording sounds as though the microphone is placed some distance from the singers. This gives a haunting, rather spare sound which sounds to me as though it is coming from a hidden cloister of a plain but beautiful ancient stone church, rather than the rounder, Cathedral-filling sound of The Tallis Scholars or Stile Antico, for example. I also have their recordings of many of the motets sung here and love them too, in their different ways. This disc is equally beautiful and evocative, but evocative of different things and, to me, a wholly different musical experience.
It's a very beautiful rewarding disc, with excellent recorded sound and first-rate notes by David Skinner, and highly recommended.
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