When Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his Mass in 1922, it was a landmark composition. The first unaccompanied setting since those of the Catholic composers of the 16th century, it evoked the spirit of a bygone age and spoke with a stunning spirituality which captured the attention of all musicians. Here Vaughan Williams is set in the context of the renaissance masters who helped to create this style.
The Cardinall’s Musick sing with a vibrancy that makes Tallis’s musical feats of skilful audacity sound every bit as surprising and exciting as they would have done half a milleninium ago. - Gramophone.