In the late 16th century when vocal polyphony was developing into the excesses of the late Italian madrigal and the powerplay of multi-choir writing in Venice, Victoria, in Rome, chose to write his 18 Tenebrae settings with the simplest texture imaginable: four voices with internal sections for just two or three parts. These perfect miniatures force the question: how can so little mean so much? Victoria’s austere yet profoundly moving setting of the Responsories for the services of Tenebrae (shadows) is one of the great classics of Renaissance music. In this new recording sung by solo voices it is restored to the low pitch and voicing intended by the composer. These perfect miniatures are interspersed with nine of Christopher Reid’s heart-rending poems from his 2009 collection and Costa Book of the Year winner, ‘A Scattering’, a moving collection on the dying and death of his wife.

"The 17th century is surely the most interesting musical period to go rooting around in. While the 16th and 18th centuries are generally more stylistically uniform, in the mid-17th century you never know what you’re going to find. Yet digging up another ‘undiscovered masterpiece’ does require quality control. Some music is better left in libraries, falling out of use with good reason; Orazio Benevoli’s Missa Tu es Petrus mass is quite spectacularly not one of those pieces. At the recording sessions, the performers were amazed by its bravura, its invention and drama – and its very significant demands on them! This was also true of the motets by Benevoli’s Roman contemporary, Bonifazio Graziani. These miniatures go further than Monteverdi in some ways but have a similar intensity. We hope you enjoy discovering them."

I Fagiolini’s re-discovery and recording of Striggio’s longlost Mass in 40/60 Parts was ground-breaking when it was released in 2011. The premiere recording won awards around the world including the Gramophone Early Music Award and a Diapason d’Or de l’Année in France and remains a trailblazing account of this Renaissance epic. It is complemented on this album by Tallis’s Spem in alium which it is said to have inspired. The Gramophone citation particularly mentioned the new lustre brought to the piece by instrumental involvement and the clarity brought to the detail by the use of viols, cornetts, sackbuts, dulcians and more. Eight further works by Striggio are also included, each of them premiere recordings in 2011.

Andrea Gabrieli has always been something of a textbook composer, whose reputation falls under the shadow of his more famous nephew, Giovanni, the composer par excellence of the grand Venetian polychoral manner. Though Andrea's music may not plumb the depths of Giovanni's best pieces, his compositional range displays a versatility that the writing of his more considered relation surely lacks. Whereas Giovanni concentrated on liturgical composition, Andrea explored the gamut of contemporary styles and forms, from madrigals and lighter secular writing to dialect texts, church music, instrumental works, experimental theatre-pieces and music for Venetian festivities.