Rees

Portuguese music enjoyed its most spectacular flowering in the early seventeenth century. Many of the greatest composers were gathered in the capital Lisbon, and this was a period when many Portuguese musicians also made their careers in Spain, which was then linked to Portugal politically. This recording presents masterpieces of Portuguese polyphony from Lisbon and Granada brought to light by the choir’s director, Owen Rees. The Lisbon composers represented are Duarte Lobo (chapelmaster at the Cathedral), Pedro de Cristo (chapelmaster at the Monastery of São Vicente), and Manuel Rodrigues Coelho (organist at the Royal Chapel).

Owen Rees leads early-music consort Contrapunctus alongside The Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford in performances of John Taverner’s masterwork, the Missa Gloria tibi trinitas. A virtuosic work, it has pride of place in the Forrest-Heyther partbooks (in the Bodleian Library in Oxford), which it has been variously argued originated at Cardinal College or at the Chapel Royal.It might well have been heard on Trinity Sunday in the chapel of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s palace at Hampton Court.

“Fans of Alice Coltrane and Arthur Verocai will find succour in his ancient/modern arrangements.” 4/5 - Mojo