John Sheppard - Cantate Mass: The Sixteen
Two discs and only 4 of 20 tracks are the Cantate mass - there's also a good range of motets including many of Sheppard's best known pieces, such as the Christmas motet Verbum caro factus est and the beautiful Libera nos. If you need convincing of Sheppard's genius, just listen to the Amen of Jesu salvator saeculi, redemptis - taken individually some of the lines sound positively 20th century in their modernity, and in combination it takes your breath away - it's hard not to say 'he can't do that!' - but he does. Perhaps the only criticism is that the Sixteen underplay the clashes so they aren't quite as shocking as they could be. Even so, probably the best introduction to Sheppard now on the market.
CDs by John Taverner
c1490 - 1545
Not to be confused with the contemporary sacred choral composer John Tavener, Taverner's music is something of a crossover between medieval music and the later, more elegant polyphony of the 16th and 17th century. He moved from being a clerk in a collegiate church to a choirmaster at Oxford. Later he returned to his native Lincolnshire, where he had a hand in the dissolution of the monasteries. Taverner is a complex composer, whose music benefits from repeated listening.
Western Wynde Mass - The Sixteen.
A good exploration of the range of Taverner's haunting music from the aptly glorious scale of the antiphon O Splendor (such antiphons were sung as part of extra devotions after the evening service of Compline) to the setting of the morning canticle, the Te Deum. Particularly interesting is the Western Wynde mass, named for the folk tune on which the mass is based. This practice was common on the continent, but may have first entered England with this piece. Either as a result of the popularity of this mass or the tune, a number of Taverner's contemporaries and successors wrote masses around the same theme. Glorious stuff.
O Splendor Gloriae, Te Deum, Alleluia. Veni electa mea
Mass 'The Western Wynde' - Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei
