The Sixteen reviews

The string orchestra in James MacMillan’s Stabat Mater does much more than merely accompany the singers. The attenuated, anxious threnody at the work’s opening runs over four minutes; later in the same movement recurring whiplash chords mimic the piercing sorrows of Mary, and MacMillan conjures a manic flapping effect, like locusts’ wings beating, as the torments of the crucified Christ are contemplated.

Rubbra’s choral music doesn’t loudly invite you in; you have to want to go there. As such, it poses difficulties for performers attempting to capture the listener’s attention, without artificially pumping up these spiritually inward-looking, deliberately unshowy pieces. In these consummate performances by The Sixteen, those difficulties dissolve away to nothing. 

In 1650, seven years after Monteverdi’s death, the Venetian publisher Alessandro Vincenti produced a volume collecting together a Mass and some psalm settings by the composer, most of which had not been published before. He was probably aided in this venture by the composer’s successor at St Mark’s, Francesco Cavalli, whose Magnificat setting was also included, thus providing settings of all the central items for Vespers services.