Despite the fame of the composers involved, this is a rather offbeat recording of unaccompanied Renaissance choral music. Still, it's beautifully sung by the Theatre of Voices under director Paul Hillier, and it will more than satisfy those in search of the particular works involved. This double-CD set is a budget reissue of two separate Theatre of Voices recordings of the mid-'90s. The booklet has been shorn of its texts, which are available on the Internet -- a solution far short of ideal, but, at least in the case of the ...
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Despite the fame of the composers involved, this is a rather offbeat recording of unaccompanied Renaissance choral music. Still, it's beautifully sung by the Theatre of Voices under director Paul Hillier, and it will more than satisfy those in search of the particular works involved. This double-CD set is a budget reissue of two separate Theatre of Voices recordings of the mid-'90s. The booklet has been shorn of its texts, which are available on the Internet -- a solution far short of ideal, but, at least in the case of the St. Matthew Passion of Lassus on disc 2, a Bible would provide a degree of help. Both major works in the set are unusual. Josquin's Missa de Beata Vergine is one of those works (like the Missa di dadi or Mass of the Dice) whose secrets seem to lie buried in the composer's own time. Each section, atypically, is based on a different chant, perhaps for some symbolic reason. Hillier breaks the mass up, interspersing its sections with motets by Jean Mouton that also center generally on...
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