There are two themes in this unusual seasonal celebration: the Five-voice Mass of William Byrd; and a selection of highly contrasting motets in praise of Christ and his Mother. The most elaborate music comes from the English composers Fayrfax and Taverner, who are here represented by two of the most substantial antiphons to come from the period around 1520, stylistically still very much in the shadow of the Eton Choirbook.

Very different is the famously tortured, action-packed music of Gesualdo. And different again is the spacious, highly contrapuntal idiom of Nicolas Gombert. His third tone Magnificat is perhaps the most expansive of all of his set of Magnificats, one in every mode, recorded complete by us some years ago. This one starts with three voices in the first verse, adding a voice as each verse goes by, until the sixth and last has eight. His astonishing Regina caeli, however, has ten voices from the start. The change of sound-world between this and the Taverner which follows it in our programme, is surely the most arresting in all the polyphonic period.