Carver: Scottish Renaissance Polyphony, Vol.3

The outstanding CD by the Sixteen "Carver. O bone Jesu" leads you to wonder why so few recordings of this wonderful composer are available. This CD presents two masses of contrasting styles. The five part "Fera pessima" is very much in the early Tudor style (Fayrfax, Ludford, Taverner) with soaring trebles, magnificent sonorous sections for the full choir alternating with passages for duos and trios. The four part "Pater creator omnium" is much shorter, largely homophonic with passages of plainchant.The academic research is first-rate, the singing technically excellent.However I find myself agreeing with the comments made by Sid Nuncius. Capella Nova are not in the same league as renowned groups such as the Tallis Scholars, the Sixteen, The Cardinall's Musick or the Huelgas Ensemble. In passages they are admirable (for example in the Sanctus and Agnus Dei in "Fera pessima") but on the whole they lack "spark" leading at times to a sensation of being laborious or uninspiring. Compare this CD with the recordings of the complete works of Robert Fayrfax by the Cardinall's Musick.Nevertheless an interesting CD and one I don't regret having purchased.

It is very good to have the whole of Carver's surviving music available. He was a fine composer who is best known for his stunning 19-part motet O Bone Jesu but who produced some very good mass settings and other music, too. Alan Tavener and Capella Nova deserve great credit for having recorded this 3-CD series, but I have never been wholly convinced by their performances.Technically, the singing is good and in the larger choral passages the impact can be very moving in places, but especially in quieter passages there is a slight thinness and fragmentation of sound, exacerbated by some slight vibrato and poor balance on occasion which can prevent the polyphony really gelling as it should. I first bought the three-disc set in the mid-90s and, while I'm glad to have it, I haven't played it all that often since - certainly nothing like as much as my discs by The Tallis Scholars, The Cardinall's Musick and others.These certainly aren't bad recordings, but there's something which doesn't quite engage me in the music or engender a sense of spirituality in the way I think it should. If you're interested in polyphony or early Scottish music then you may well be glad of this series, but personally I can only give it a rather qualified recommendation.