Scrupulous scholarship, masterful conducting and committed singing merge to restore the legacy of one of England's most inventive 16th-century composers.

Though not as showy as Taverner, Ludford's more understated idiom is every bit as persuasive. Repeated listening reveals great subtlety in the handling of texture, an exhilarating sense of confidence in formal planning, and real melodic inspiration. The opening of each movement is identical, and excludes the trebles, whose subsequent appearance in a different context is nicely managed.
From the point of view of repertoire this is a major issue.
Here, New College's trebles show how much young singers can achieve in the way of cohesiveness, coherence and sheer persuasiveness of melodic shape. That speaks volumes, considering that, of all the English choral repertory written for trebles, this is perhaps the most difficult for today's youngsters to master. It's difficult to argue that adult female singers are demonstrably better equipped than boys: the advantage of bigger lungs is offset by the careful choice and placement of breaths. For the rest, the tone of these particular trebles is expressive in itself.

I've long admired New College's trebles, and here they show how much young singers can achieve in the way of cohesiveness, coherence and sheer persuasiveness of melodic shape.

New College, Oxford are in a class of their own.

Listening to these superb performances, it seems extraordinary that Nicholas Ludford is not already fully acknowledged as one of early 16th-century England's most talented composers.
Both in the Missa "Benedicta et venerabilis", and in two extended votive antiphons, his deliciously euphonious polyphony abounds in the long, soaring lines, quirky turns of melodic and harmonic phrase and thrillingly sonorous climaxes characteristic of this repertoire.
It also has a graceful elegance all Ludford's own, to which this joyously committed singing does full justice.