Peter Phillips

The Tallis Scholars & Peter Phillips – Josquin Masses – Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie, Missa D’ung aultre amer & Missa Faysant regretz (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/176,4 kHz | Time – 01:11:36 minutes | 2,65 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Gimell Records

The Tallis Scholars and Peter Phillips started their incomparable service to the 15th-century composer Josquin des Prez in 1986. And with this, the ninth volume, they conclude their journey magnificently. The “Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae,” written for Duke Ercole I d’Este of Ferrara, is a work of extraordinary complexity and compositional virtuosity, but its sheer emotional power is remarkable. The Tallis Scholars’ purity of tone, their total identification with the idiom, and their diamond-like articulation are glorious. The “Missa D’ung aultre amer” and “Missa Faisant regretz,” simpler but equally communicative, are also superb. Atmospherically recorded, this is a gem of an album.

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The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips – John Sheppard: Missa Cantate (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:16:19 minutes | 3,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Gimell Records

Recorded to celebrate The Tallis Scholars’ 50th Anniversary, John Sheppard’s exuberant Missa Cantate is an ideal work to highlight their pioneering achievements. The Tallis Scholars first album of music by John Sheppard, released in 1989, created a new icon of English Renaissance polyphony – Media vita. Their second Sheppard album may well do the same for his only Votive Antiphon on a festal scale, Gaude virgo Christiphera.

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The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips – Josquin des Prés: Missa Di dadi & Missa Une mousse de Biscaye (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/176,4 kHz | Time – 01:11:13 minutes | 2,36 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Gimell Records

One of the sad things about Josquin research is that works are judged spurious—or even just possibly spurious—and then get forgotten entirely. That is partly because there are so many superb Josquin works that are beyond doubt; but all the same it is a pity. Besides, the case of the Missa Une mousse de Biscaye has been one of the most energetically argued over the years, both for and against. The main issues here are that there are a lot of dissonances that are uncharacteristic of his mature style; and the main counter-argument is that in his early years he was experimenting with many different styles. Either way, there seems not to have been a recording of it since 1959, which is a great pity, because it is a marvellous piece, whoever composed it. Some years ago I went on record as thinking that, on balance, it was probably not by Josquin. Now that I have heard this wonderful recording I am almost ready to rethink the whole thing.
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The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips – Francisco Guerrero – Missa Surge propera (2006)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:50 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Gimell Records

“Known in his lifetime as ‘El cantor de Maria’, Guerrero was second only to Victoria in Spanish renaissance music. His Marian motets are celebrated as some of the most beautiful compositions of the period: we include five of the best, including Ave virgo sanctissima, one of the most loved and imitated pieces of polyphony from any country.” Peter Phillips

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The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips – Arvo Pärt: Tintinnabuli (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:03 minutes | 1023 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Gimell Records

Given that the music of Arvo Pärt is among a vanishingly small group by whom it is possible to follow a clear line back to ‘early’ music, The Tallis Scholars are, on paper, the best group imaginable to record his music. Peter Phillips has disagreed in the past with the idea that there is a direct link between the two – it is certainly the case that the stasis that underpins Pärt’s harmony creates a kind of timelessness that is less, not more, in need of historical context – but either way, the purity of The Tallis Scholars’ sound provides the perfect scaffolding for the pieces on this disc. Not least because the bell-like, note-clustering Tintinnabuli music of Pärt (illustrated here in its most basic form in the Magnificat) is there specifically to address the issue of perception, time and history.
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