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a winning combination of composer and choir at the top of their game

19 May 2010
theclassicalreview.com
Jonathan Wikeley

The Tallis Scholars convey this music in the way we've grown to expect: with beauty, accuracy, finesse, poise and a graceful sense of musicality that makes this 30th anniversary recording (which also marks Gimell's 50th release) a joy to listen to from beginning to end. Peter Phillips says he asked the choir for a "more forthright tone" for the main bodies of text, but I'm not sure he got it: the singers are not willing to sacrifice an inch of beauty, even if the text demands it.

But then again, that's what we love about The Tallis Scholars: that angelic, how-do-they-do-it tone, the wonderful balance - music to sigh to. The disc is stunningly recorded in Merton College Chapel, Oxford - if there's a better acoustic for recording music like this in England I'd love to know - and is a winning combination of composer and choir at the top of their game. The Lamentations by Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, born in Malaga, and for many years Maestro de Capilla at Puebla Cathedral in Mexico, is another fine work, sung here with a little more intensity than the Victoria.

Read the full review on www.theclassicalreview.com.

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a winning combination of composer and choir at the top of their game