The first track here is one of the most astonishing, sustained 18 minutes of polyphony you will ever hear: Contrapunctus realise the Gothic spans and arching phrases of Tallis’s lavish Gaude gloriosa Dei mater with wonderful clarity and poise. This is their second CD devoted to the music from the Baldwin partbooks, an Oxford project bringing musicology and performance together; the superb singing fulfils every expectation (except perhaps that of variety). With crystal-clear sounds from the high sopranos, the repeated invocations of Robert Fayrfax’s Ave Dei patris filia have a hypnotic quality, while the two shorter Robert White motets in honour of the Virgin Mary are very moving.
