Album: Tenebrae, Tomás Luis De Victoria: Requiem Mass, 1605 (Signum Classics)

Victoria's Requiem Mass is one of the acknowledged masterpieces of Renaissance choral polyphony,and Tenebrae here exquisitely conveys the the flowing relationships between its six voices.

The group presents the work with elegant subtlety, allowing the full detail of tonal colouration to shine through unencumbered. The abnegation of wordly misery in lines such as "My soul is weary of my life" is echoed in the less well-known but equally absorbing "Versa est in luctum" ("My harp is turned to mourning") by Alonso Lobo, a complex piece of gorgeous chromatism, in which the sublime soprano tones cascade emotively over the lower counterpoints to remarkable effect.

DOWNLOAD THIS Requiem Mass; Versa est in luctum