Looking for good recordings of Renaissance Polyphony on CD. Can you help me? Thanks!
  • Paul_OnnonhoaratonPaul_Onnonhoaraton
    Posts: 434
    Looking for good recordings of Renaissance Polyphony on CD. Can you help me? Thanks!

    My criteria are listed here.

  • Ben_WhitworthBen_Whitworth
    Posts: 90
    Anything at all by the Cardinall's Musick (dir. Andrew Carwood), and hear them live if ever you can. "Sacred Music for Mary, Queen of Scots" by Cappella Nova (Alan Tavener), as it includes fine performances of some rarely-heard Scottish repertoire (e.g. Robert Carver, David Peebles) - as does the CD of Robert Carver's music by the mighty Sixteen (Harry Christophers). John Taverner's "Missa Corona Spinea" by the Choir of King's College, London (David Trendall): what an inspired director can get out of an ordinary student volunteer choir. Did those wonderful old recordings of Tallis by the Clerkes of Oxenford ever make it onto CD? I used to have the cassettes. And I advise you to break one of your own rules and get the Allegri's "Miserere" CD by the Tallis Scholars, as I think it contains the only recording of William Mundy's "Vox Patris caelestis", the greatest of all Assumptiontide motets.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Omigosh, JMO, where would one begin?
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,094
    This and its sequels (there will be 6 vols in all when the project finishes) Also, any recording by Ensemble Cinquecento (artists in residence at St. Roch in Vienna)
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,199
    Two recordings by Zephyrus (I sang and recorded with this group, 1992-2004):

    Angelus (2000)
    1. Surge, illuminare (Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina)
    2. Ave Maria ... virgo serena (6 voices) (Josquin des Prez & Anonymous)
    3. O regem coeli (Tomas Luis de Victoria)
    4. Ecce Maria genuit (Josquin des Prez)
    5. Quern vidistis, pastores (Cipriano de Rore)
    6. O magnum mysterium (Cristobal de Morales)
    7. Vox in Rama (Jacobus Clemens non Papa)
    8. Missus est Angelus Gabriel (Orlande de Lassus)
    9. Vox clamantis in deserto (Giaches de Wert)
    10. Ave Maria ... benedicta tu (Johannes Ockeghem)
    11. Ave Maria ... virgo serena (Josquin des Prez)
    12. Angelus ad pastores ait (Andrea Gabrieli)

    Flemish Masters (2004)
    1. Christe Redemptor omnium (Adrian Willaert)
    2. Ego flos campi Jacobus (Clemens non Papa)
    3. Alma Redemptoris mater (Johannes Ockeghem)
    4. Nesciens mater (Jean Mouton)
    5. Gaude Virgo, Mater Christi (Josquin des Prez)
    6. Lugebat David Absalon (Nicolas Gombert)
    7. Kyrie - Missa Sub tuum presidium (Jacob Obrecht)
    8. Gloria - Missa Sub tuum presidium (Jacob Obrecht)
    9. Credo - Missa Sub tuum presidium (Jacob Obrecht)
    10. Sanctus - Missa Sub tuum presidium (Jacob Obrecht)
    11. Agnus Dei - Missa Sub tuum presidium (Jacob Obrecht)
  • Ben_WhitworthBen_Whitworth
    Posts: 90
    4. Nesciens mater (Jean Mouton)

    What a sublime piece of music that is!
    Thanked by 1Aristotle Esguerra
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,094
    I forgot this and this from Pomerium. Also, refer back to here for a previous recommendation.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,199
    Pomerium sings amazingly well and with great sensitivity in the recordings JQ mentions as well as several others, including the CD "Creator of the Stars."

    As an aside, the talented soprano Dominique Surh, who can be heard in the Orlande Lassus recording by Pomerium also sang with Zephyrus and was one of the singers in the Angelus recording mentioned above. I remember well the soli sections in the Taverner Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas with Zephyrus (alas, this was only recorded in performance and hence not released for general sale), especially when she and I sang the soprano-bass duet in the Credo on "Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum" in which the two voices are mostly separated by two or three octaves.
  • Paul_OnnonhoaratonPaul_Onnonhoaraton
    Posts: 434
    Hello, friends. If at all possible, it would wonderful if we could keep the discussion in the blog comments --- if that's impossible, no worries. Then I wouldn't have to go two places.

    I did look up everything you guys have suggested, but I am having an awful time trying to find audio excerpts (so I can hear a snippet before purchasing) --- THANKS if you can help!
  • CGM
    Posts: 705
    In my opinion, you can't go wrong with either of these two vastly different ensembles:

    1. The Hilliard Ensemble
    gentlemen (occasionally they'll add a female voice or two for really high stuff), singing one voice per part, with exquisitely honed expression, phrasing, breathing.

    2. Stile Antico
    a mixed choir of 16 or so singers. Astonishingly beautiful ensemble sound. Better than perfect, and yet still expressive, human, warm and wonderful.
  • JPike1028
    Posts: 95
    I love Voices of Ascension. I would start with their Mysteries of the Renaissance CD. This is the best choir I have ever heard live and they are based in NYC.
  • Ruth Lapeyre
    Posts: 341
    Like voices of Ascension as well and use it when I teach Art of Liturgical Music but I want to give some of these other CDs mentioned a listen too.
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