Superior Choral Sampler

The Best Of The Renaissance may not be the most imaginative title for a double cd compilation but the selection of music is, in fact, intelligently put together. The performers throughout are the Tallis Scholars directed by Peter Phillips, although the number in the forces used varies with some of the items on the disk. The music was recorded in the 80s and 90s and so it is fair to say that performance practice has moved on a little since then but it stands up well enough. There are a couple of fairly obvious inclusions, Allegri's Miserere and Tallis's Spem In Alium, together with masses by Byrd, Desprez and Palestrina. Gesualdo is represented by the Tenebrae Repositories for Holy Saturday and there are also pieces by Di Lasso, Taverner and Cardoso. Not an album for the purist who would prefer the music to be set in a proper context but a good sampler beautifully sung that could lead on to other things.