William Mundy

Graham Ross and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge celebrate the 500th anniversary of Palestrina's birth in style, recording for the very first time an album of outstanding works by the Roman master that are still little-known. To add resonance to their program, they pair settings of the same texts by three of Palestrina's English contemporaries: William Byrd, Robert White, and William Mundy.

Continuing its exploration of Tudor Latin sacred music, ‘The Tudors At Prayer’ sees Magnificat perform music by Taverner, Tallis, Mundy, White and Byrd. The highlight is Mundy’s towering Vox Patris caelestis; immensely vivid and colourful this is a powerful performance to challenge any that has gone before. Equally enthralling as Magnificat’s critically acclaimed Spem in alium, but with even richer textures, Vox Patris caelestis perfectly demonstrates Magnificat’s heaven-sent sound.

This disc presents a selection of works from the Chirk Castle part-books, a fascinating collection of devotional music from the Tudor period that remained hidden in the castle library for three hundred years.
The Chirk manuscripts contain works for unaccompanied voices as well as verse anthems and services, scored for solo voices, chorus and organ. This recording focuses on the unaccompanied items, presenting for the first time a selection of the ‘full’ services and anthems found in the manuscripts, including seven unique to the Chirk collection.

Our second October release from Westminster Abbey tells the story of the religious and political turmoil that engulfed England in the sixteenth century, and from which composers of liturgical music could find no escape. They were forced to follow the changing edicts about permitted texts as the pendulum of power oscillated between traditional and reformed religion. Interestingly, this period saw the greatest flowering of church music in England’s history; some of the most magnificent works of the age are recorded here.