Gibbons: Choral and Organ Music
Gibbons is often better represented in the hymn book than in the serious music of a service - and this CD helps demonstrate why that's a shame. With a mix of verse and full anthems, plus both sets of Mag and Nunc, and a smattering of organ music it gives a good picture of Gibbons' church output. If you like the sound of madrigals, you'll like some of the church music, but there are also works in here to rival more heavy duty compositions - Out of the deep, for example. Both evening services are fun - the contemplative verse settings of the second service and the livelier short service.
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
