The Sixteen, a mixed choir with powerful women's voices, doesn't offer passage into a Renaissance soundworld in the way that a choir with really well-trained boy singers can do. But they've been exceptionally successful with Renaissance and Baroque choral releases that mix sensuously beautiful singing with compelling presentation of the music. This disc offers a good example, and a fine starting place for anyone interested in the a cappella choral music of the Renaissance and how it was used. The title is a little deceptive ...
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The Sixteen, a mixed choir with powerful women's voices, doesn't offer passage into a Renaissance soundworld in the way that a choir with really well-trained boy singers can do. But they've been exceptionally successful with Renaissance and Baroque choral releases that mix sensuously beautiful singing with compelling presentation of the music. This disc offers a good example, and a fine starting place for anyone interested in the a cappella choral music of the Renaissance and how it was used. The title is a little deceptive -- the disc does not reconstruct music for the wedding of King Philip of Spain and Mary Tudor, but for a 1554 Christmas mass soon after their wedding, when Mary was thought to be pregnant with a potential heir to the English throne. The music that was actually performed is unknown, but director Harry Christophers selects a mix of English and Spanish pieces that refers to childbirth, kings, and other appropriate themes. The result is that the listener, with the concrete scene of this...
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