COMPOSERS: Tye
LABELS: Hyperion Helios
WORKS: Mass Euge bone; Peccavimus cum patribus nostris; Kyrie ‘Orbis factor’; Miserere mei, Deus
PERFORMER: Winchester Cathedral Choir/David Hill
CATALOGUE NO: CDH 55079 Reissue (1990)
Several new versions of Tye’s Missa Euge bone have appeared since the Winchester Cathedral Choir first released this disc of Tye’s Cathedral music in 1991. However, and notwithstanding Jeremy Summerly’s splendid Naxos offering with the Oxford Camerata, in my view none matches the Winchester recording for sheer vitality and sonic brilliance.
Summerly directs the Oxford Camerata’s well-balanced voices with sensitivity and interpretative penetration in a generally excellent rendering of Tye’s Euge bone Mass. However, the rhythmic flexibility and exultant phrasing of Winchester choir’s traversal of the same work remains unassailable. Lively speeds generate increased vitality in the Gloria and Credo and superb chording culminates in exciting harmonic climaxes. Luminescent singing in the Agnus Dei completes a magnificent performance.
In addition, besides a joyous, rhythmically vibrant account of the Kyrie ‘Orbis factor’, four motets confirm the expressive range of Hill’s choristers. ‘Quaesumus omnipotens’ and ‘Miserere mei, Deus’ highlight the choir’s textural consistency. Meanwhile, the jubilation in ‘Omnes gentes’ still sounds fresh and energetic, as does the spiritual passion in ‘Peccavimus cum patribus nostris’. Nicholas Rast