Loquebantur, Music From The Baldwin Partbooks – The Marian Consort / McCleery

   in Classical Music (Aug, 2015)
Much of the repertoire in this engaging and thoughtfully-planned programme will be unfamiliar, a collection curated by John Baldwin. And it is a measure of his discriminating, adventurous taste as well as the commitment and talent of the performers here recorded so well, that there is not a single unappealing moment. Be equally adventurous and investigate! …
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Choir & Organ (Jan, 2016)
There’s more Tallis on the menu in Loquebantur – Music from the Baldwin Partbooks (Delphian DCD 34160) which finds The Marian Consort and Rose Consort of Viols exploring Baldwin’s eclectic collection of material, both well-known (Tallis, Byrd, Taverner) and rarities (Aston, Gerarde, Hollander, and Baldwin himself). The singers’ splendid lack of self-indulgence, unfussy with an energy-rich legato, impresses, and they excel in passages of gentleness. I’ll never be convinced by the high pitch of their other- wise beautifully sung Suscipe quaeso, but it’s mostly admirable from an ensemble of considerable personality and artistic maturity. …
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   in Early Music Today (Jun, 2016)
English music owes much to John Baldwin (c.1560–1615). A composer and Gentleman of the Chapel Royal (from 1598), he was an assiduous copyist to whom we owe not only two collections of Tudor music that bear his name, but also My Ladye Nevills Booke, the meticulous collection of William Byrd’s keyboard music.

The Baldwin Partbooks to which the present CD is devoted have come down to us with one of its six parts missing, necessitating some reconstruction in the case of pieces without other sources. The selection recorded here includes sacred and viol consort works by the likes of Tallis, Byrd and Sheppard, in addition to the lesser-known Gerarde and Hollander. …
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