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►Note: This Super Audio-Hybrid CD will play on all conventional CD Players. The Sixteens anthology of a century of royal repertoire composed for monarchs and magnates is the real thing: a masterpiece of detective work, rare repertoire and artful editing, and a fitting celebration of its first quarter-century devoted to early music. Pride of place goes to a pair of recordings of Talliss Spem in alium, in Latin and in English (as Sing and Glorify), the rich mingling of its eight five-voice choirs revealingly captured in the spacious clarity of surround sound, a process that could have been invented for this purpose. Harry Christopherss booklet note explores the possible origins and challenging symbolism of this work, a theme even more potently expressed in Byrds motet Deus venerunt gentes. Another religious exclamation (but this time protesting against Puritan excesses in the Civil War), Tomkinss grandly tortured outpouring O God, the heathen are come, is recorded for the first time in John Milsoms reconstruction. Sackbuts and cornets add splendor to ceremonial items by Tallis and Gibbons, and in the hands of these skilled players also add their note of sublime grief to another Tomkins score: Know you not, a lament for Henry, Prince of Wales, that forms the emotional heart of this collection. BBC Music Magazine.