Palestrina Missa L’homme arme. Missa Assumpta est Maria. Pro Cantione Antiqua / Mark Brown.

Carlton Classics (Budget price) (CD) 30366 00782 (74 minutes: DDD). Text and translation included. From PCD952 (recorded 1990).

These accounts – featuring the generally darker sound of an all-male ‘cast’ – are neither triumphalist nor even dramatic, but serene. Yet PCA’s interpretation of Assumpta est Maria is every bit as vibrant as those of The Tallis Scholars (Gimell, 9/90) or Clare College, Cambridge (EMI, 8/97), thanks in part to the two countertenors on the higest parts. In L’homme arme the balance is relly rather bottom-heavy anf there are uncharacteristic intonational problems. Elsewhere, though, the plainchant items are well chosen and movingly delivered.

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