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ENGLISH MOTETS
The Gesualdo Six / Owain Park · Hyperion CDA68256
The Gesualdo Six hardly need a review of this their debut CD: within days of its release around Easter it was top of the iTunes classical chart. The CD is a collection of English Renaissance motets composed over a 200-year period of considerable change in musical fashions combined with religious turbulence. Composers include William Cornysh, Tallis and Byrd of course, Gibbons, Taverner, John Sheppard, Thomas Morley and Thomas Tomkins. The ensemble was formed in 2014 by Owain Park when he was an organ scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge. The group has since made its name touring in the UK and abroad. I heard them singing live earlier this year; theirs is a silky, smooth, fresh sound, and, with just a handful of singers, there’s an intimacy of performance not possible with larger numbers. There’s some nifty singing on this CD – Byrd’s Vigilate is a case in point – and, by contrast, warmth and richness in works such as John Sheppard’s Libera nos, salva nos. Phrasing must be mentioned too: Byrd’s anguished Lenten motets Ne irascaris, Domine and Civitas sancti tui are allowed to be precisely that, with sensitive shaping of phrases. Both motets – and others – are performed at a tempo where the part writing can breathe, and, talking of breathing, there is some masterful breath control here too. With comprehensive, scholarly CD notes from Owain Park, this is an excellent collection.
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