Tomkins: The Great Service

"Just as some composers enjoy inflated reputations on account of their historical position, so others can suffer undue disdain if the musical developments of their day appear to have passed them by. Such a one is Thomas Tomkins, a survivor into the second half of the seventeenth century for whom the baroque might just as well have been a distant rumour. But though his music belongs securely in the late Renaissance realm of his teacher Byrd, there is no doubting the heights it can reach. This CD presents the ten-part Great Service, the third of his five service settings (i.e. the canticles Te Deum, Jubilate, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis), a work set out on a ceremonial scale and employing a complex and constantly changing textural palette. To go with it there are seven excellent anthems - among them the deservedly famous When David heard - which provide further evidence of Tomkins's skill as a contrapuntist and masterful manipulator of choral sonority. Anyone familiar with the work of The Tallis Scholars will know exactly what mastery they are capable of as well. Here, as usual, they offer perfect intonation and a clear, incisive texture, resulting in a sound of stunning, unequivocal beauty. The group ranging in size from 10 to 16 singers, delivers an impressive range of dynamics, from the intimacy of Woe is me or Then David mourned to the confident and forceful splendour of O God, the proud are risen against me or O sing unto the Lord. I suppose that at times Peter Phillips could have brought a mite more shape to Tomkins's often rather densely-woven counterpoint, or responded with more agility to the composer's odd touches of madrigalian word-painting; but in truth, if you can perform with the sheer expertise and refinement of The Tallis Scholars, there's really little you can do wrong. This disc is eloquent proof of that." Lindsay Kemp (Gramophone, March 1992)