In the studio - Taverner's Missa Gloria tibi trinitas

We have just finished recording John Taverner's Missa Gloria tibi trinitas, one of the great glories of Tudor music, with the Choir of The Queen's College. Taverner gave it pride of place in the manuscript preserving the repertory from his time as the first Choirmaster at the new Cardinal College (now Christ Church) in Oxford. The drama of this music comes from the striking alternation of sections scored for the full six-voice choir and intricate solo sections. Our recording reveals how this dramatic aspect might have sounded in original performances by the largest Tudor church choirs: we achieve this by combining the forces of Owen Rees’s two ensembles: Contrapunctus (singing the solo sections) and the Choir of The Queen’s College, to provide combined forces of some 40 singers, matching the Tudor Chapel Royal. Other works include Taverner’s supremely beautiful Leroy Kyrie and Audivi vocem de caelo. The recording will be released on the Signum label in 2019.