Victoria: Popule meus for 4 voices

GRAMMY® Award winners in 2009, The King’s Singers are one of the world’s most celebrated ensembles. Their programming concept in this disc is unique: built upon the individual clauses of The Lord’s Prayer, beginning and ending in plainchant, it ranges over the centuries to explore the spiritually charged text. Chant is at the heart of the programme, and each composer’s setting illuminates the others, shedding rich interpretative light on the poetic and devotional aspects of the prayer.

One of the world’s most celebrated ensembles, The King’s Singers have a packed schedule of concerts, recordings, media and education work that spans the globe. Championing the work of both young and established composers, they are instantly recognisable for their spot-on intonation, impeccable vocal blend, flawless articulation of the text and incisive timing. They are also consummate entertainers: a class act with a delightfully British wit.

Tomás Luis de Victoria was the greatest composer of the Spanish sixteenth-century ‘golden age’ of polyphonic music. This recording is of the six-voice Missa Dum complerentur, the five-part motet on which the Mass is based, and six further hymns and sequences including the great Popule meus, a setting of the Improperia (Reproaches) which form the heart of the liturgy for Good Friday.

This is music of compelling beauty, which illustrates well Victoria’s extraordinary capacity to create through simple homophony extremely moving music of great expressiveness.