Album: Paul McCreesh, Gabrieli Consort & PlayersA New Venetian Coronation 1595 (Signum)

The latest of Paul McCreesh's large-scale musical projects, following his award-winning realisation of Berlioz's colossal Grande Messe des Morts, is this updated re-recording of the album that in 1990 established the reputation of the Gabrieli Consort & Players, a detailed re-creation of the pageantry surrounding the coronation of Marino Grimani as Doge of Venice in 1595.

It's a marvellous achievement, incorporating the rapturous choral polyphony of Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli interspersed with passages of organ and period-instrument arrangements of cornetts, sackbutts and shawms. It's never less than enthralling, especially the lengthy opening "The Procession".

Download: The Procession; Gloria à 16; Canzona [9] à 10