One of the glories of English music is the small, radiant corpus of sacred choral pieces by John Taverner, five of which are performed by this superb mixed choir. Both his settings of the Easter responsory Dum transisset Sabbatum are given, and the freestanding Leroy Kyrie usefully prefaces the Missa Corona spinea, one of his three six-part Masses, all Kyrie-less in the English tradition. The music marks the apogee of pre-Reformation florid polyphony and is endlessly fascinating, the compositional means clearly audible and sublimely transcended. Finally comes the votive antiphon O splendor gloriae, which may have been a collaboration, but is no less hauntingly lovely for that.
Dephian DCD34023