Composer: John Taverner
Performer: Alamire
Conductor: David Skinner
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Obsidian Records
Catalogue: CD707
Release: 2011
Size: 332 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Psalm 41, “Quemadmodum”
02. Audivi vocem de caelo
03. Ave Dei Patris filia
04. Dum transisset sabbatum
05. Mater Christi
06. Gaude plurimum
07. Gloria in excelsis
08. O splendor gloriae
John Taverner (d. 1545) is, arguably, the most famous of all early Tudor composers, and one who had a rather colourful musical and political career. His music represents the final flowering of late medieval English polyphony before the onslaught of mid 16th-century Reformation.
Much of the music on this recording centres around Taverner’s earlier career, including the three surviving large-scale Votive Antiphons. Included, too, is his sumptuous six-part Quemadmodum, which stylistically foreshadows true ‘Renaissance’ composition in England.
British Renaissance-oriented choir Alamire bulks up to 11 members (from the usual eight) for this release of music mostly in five parts by composer John Taverner, all dating from the years around 1520. They still create an ensemble clearly made up of individual voices, and the results are highly expressive. The adult, mixed-gender Alamire is a superb group in any repertoire, but this may be its best release yet: it unlocks the mystery of Taverner, who is a difficult composer. Not so much difficult technically: a choir can get away with more in Taverner’s sweeping, irregular lines than in Josquin’s precise points of imitation. But to capture the expression in this music, which lies right between the monumental, fundamentally medieval style of earlier British sacred music and the coming text-centered world of the Renaissance, is not an easy task. Taverner’s lines are wide in compass, meant to be exciting in their freedom, but also elegantly shaped into clear text settings and passages in reduced texture. The balance and clarity achieved by Alamire and director David Skinner in this group of Marian antiphons and other works are striking, but they never get in the way of a certain muscle and verve without which early English polyphony just becomes inert. A very strong choice for any collection of English choral music or even for a starting place in this often frustrating repertoire.