Cardoso: Missa Secundi Toni And Other Works – Lucy Morrell

   in Choir & Organ (Jul, 2018)
This is a fascinating and highly important disc that highlights the music of Manuel Cardoso (1566-1650), a master of polyphony from Portugal’s golden age around the turn of the 17th century. Many of the works herein are receiving their premiere recordings and most will be largely unknown outside musicological circles. Combining the bright voices of the Choir of Girton College, Cambridge, with the Historic Brass of the Royal Academy of Music was an inspired idea, especially when they are so cleanly recorded in a near-perfect balance between voices and instruments. The Missa Secundi Toni is the centrepiece of the recording; its six sections are not presented in one go but rather …