Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

Hyperion Records have launched a major new series that aims to make available all of Monteverdi’s sacred music as performed by the King's Consort. In the meantime Hyperion have reissued this 1985 recording of two of the three surviving settings written by the composer and, what is more, it is on their mid-price Helios label. Monteverdi was writing after the Reformation when much of the ritual surrounding the celebration of the Mass was being rethought, even within the Roman Catholic Church. The Mass was becoming less musically important. The Reformers’ arguments on the nature of the Mass, and the Catholic response at the Council of Trent, diminished its use as an occasion for ostentatious display. Monteverdi’s settings are thus relatively straightforward but nonetheless beautiful. The Sixteen are an outstanding choir and sing as well as ever making this an excellent introduction to a significant composer.

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