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The Eton Choirbook is a giant 500 year-old manuscript from Eton College Chapel, and one of the greatest surviving glories of pre-Reformation England. This recording features the earliest polyphonic Passion by a named composer, two heartrending motets for five and six voices, two thrilling settings of the Magnificat, and an extraordinary canon in 13 parts, Jesus autem transiens. The ensemble TONUS PEREGRINUS has been widely acclaimed, not least for its “richly sung and very well recorded” programme of Orlando Gibbons, L’Estrange, and Pitts. (The Penguin Guide on 8557681)
Walter Lambe: Nesciens mater
Nesciens mater
William Stratford: Magnificat
Magnificat
Nesciens mater (Sarum chant)
Nesciens mater (Sarum chant)
Richard Davy: Passio Domini
Passio Domini
John Browne: Stabat Mater
Stabat Mater
Hugh Kellyk: Magnificat
Magnificat
Robert Wilkinson: Jesus autem transiens - Credo in Deum
Jesus autem transiens - Credo in Deum
October 2012
****
“These performances are commendable, displaying unearthly breath control in the long phrases of works such as Kellyk's Magnificat, and great clarity of texture in the dense counterpoint typical of these pieces”
Awards Issue 2012
“listeners need not expect the crystalline textures of the specialist Tudor music groups in such music. The high-quality recording technique brings out quite a few different kinds of voice here, with different degrees of vibrato and different approaches to musical line; but, within those limitations, the CD is an undoubted success.”
April 2013
“Unless you insist on boys’ voices rather than those of women, this mixed-voice choir deserves your surely delighted attention...At every turn these are fine performances, excellently recorded by Geoff Miles using new, experimental microphones with happy results.”
12th August 2012
“This new collection...is exceptionally successful and sonorous...the incomplete chant-based Matthew Passion by Richard Davy makes a strong centrepiece, while for sheer contrapuntal virtuosity you cannot beat the oddest piece, the final 13-part canon by Robert Wylkynson.”
4th August 2012
****
“The 15th-century collection of sacred music known as the Eton Choirbook is regularly extolled but far less often performed. So three cheers to Antony Pitts’s subtly expressive choir Tonus Peregrinus...These ravishing melismas seem to lead the ear on and on towards eternity — as, probably, they were intended to do.”
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Nesciens mater
