In the Midst of Life: Music from the Baldwin Partbooks I

Contrapunctus really knows what to do with these pieces and from the very first item...the tuning is superb and the ensemble rock solid. Moreover, Owen Rees's interpretations are revelatory and... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2015, More…

Release Date: 9th Feb 2015
Catalogue No: SIGCD408
Label: Signum
Length: 68 minutes

BBC Music Magazine

August 2015

Choral & Song Choice
Gramophone Magazine

May 2015

Editor's Choice
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2015

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Byrd: Circumdederunt me

5:03

$1.00

$1.40

Contrapunctus
Owen Rees

Parsons, R: Libera me, Domine from Responds for the Dead

7:28

$1.50

$2.10

Contrapunctus
Owen Rees

Byrd: Audivi vocem de cælo

4:14

$1.00

$1.40

Contrapunctus
Owen Rees

Mundy, W: Sive vigilem

3:30

$1.00

$1.40

Contrapunctus
Owen Rees

Parsons, R: Peccantem me quotidie

6:07

$1.00

$1.40

Contrapunctus
Owen Rees

Taverner: Quemadmodum

6:30

$1.00

$1.40

Contrapunctus
Owen Rees

Tallis: Nunc dimittis

3:13

$1.00

$1.40

Contrapunctus
Owen Rees

Dericke Gerarde: Sive vigilem

6:13

$1.00

$1.40

Contrapunctus
Owen Rees

Parsons, R: Credo quod redemptor meus vivit

2:43

$1.00

$1.40

Contrapunctus
Owen Rees

Sheppard, J: Media vita

23:09

Album only

Contrapunctus
Owen Rees

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About

Shortlisted for the Gramophone Early Music Award in 2014, Contrapunctus releases an album of motets from the Baldwin Tudor partbooks, on the theme of mortality. Conducted by Owen Rees, the album includes Sheppard’s epic 'Media vita' and works by Byrd, Parsons, Mundy, Taverner, Gerarde and Tallis, with Contrapunctus’s own reconstructions of the missing tenor parts.

Reviews

August 2015

Contrapunctus really knows what to do with these pieces and from the very first item...the tuning is superb and the ensemble rock solid. Moreover, Owen Rees's interpretations are revelatory and even visionary...The next volume is keenly awaited.

CD Review 18th April 2015

Contrapunctus has chosen quite a low pitch and that enhances the richness, and you’ll hear the distinct vocal personalities in the group...as well as the slow, steady sense of pulse which we enjoyed, and the intriguing ambivalence between awe and fear, the vulnerability of the human condition.

May 2015

There’s lovely balance and clarity of sound from as fine a clutch of voices...as one might wish

Early Music Review 20th February 2015

The singing throughout is consistently full-toned and focussed, but essentially for this repertoire constantly ready with expressive crescendos and decrescendos to mark textual changes in mood. With its nine highly experienced singers (boosted to ten for the larger works) Contrapunctus is the ideal group for this superb repertoire, and I look forward with eager anticipation to future CDs in this series.

May 2015

Contrapunctus are special...These are understated performances whose moment-to-moment drama is less striking than the long, aching arcs they achieve over five or six minutes - director Owen Rees shows his experience here, making a case for a conductor in a climate in which musical democracy is increasingly king.

22nd February 2015

Rees’s choir brings an intensity of sound and dramatic dynamics, in music that contemplates the pain of death in ecstatic elation and sublime devotion.

29th March 2015

Borrowing its title from the openings of the Nunc dimittis, the subject here is mortality and fear of the Day of Judgment. Rees’s accompanying notes tell a fascinating story of the survival of these partbooks. Whether you listen in Lenten penitence or in general hope of spiritual balm, the message is universal, the singing superb.

In the Midst of Life

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