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Gimell CDGIM054

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Reviewer : David Fallows
Here Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars present the four great votive antiphons of Fayrfax’s maturity – vast works in five voices, each lasting a quarter of an hour and showing the most astonishing economy of means. He chooses to present them with only two singers on each voice, which strikes me as a touch minimal. But then, these are probably among the world’s best singers for this kind of music; and they now have enormous resources of experience. As always, The Tallis Scholars run effortlessly like a Rolls-Royce; and everything seems unchallengeably in place.

The most astonishing of these pieces is the one Phillips thinks is the latest, Maria plena virtute: lots of it is in just two voices, something that early Tudor composers did spectacularly well, but perhaps Fayrfax better than most. Here the broadly shifting textures add astonishing varieties of colour to the music; and the text, evidently written specially for the music, shows a marvellous new dimension of religious poetry in early 16th-century England.

All of this has been recorded before, of course, most notably in the discs of the superb complete Fayrfax edition of The Cardinall’s Musick under Andrew Carwood; but these are now over a quarter of a century old, and there is plenty of room for multiple versions of this glorious music. Moreover, it is great to have all four antiphons together. Phillips consistently takes broader tempos than Carwood, so the upshot is gentler and cooler. But lovers of this music will certainly want to have both interpretations. Peter Phillips contributes a characteristically informed booklet note.

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