Classical review: Victoria: Missa Gaudeamus, etc: Westminster Cathedral: Lay Clerks/Wilson/Martin

New recordings of Tomas Luis de Victoria's intensely beautiful mass settings, the musical peak of the Spanish Renaissance, come along frequently enough. This latest, recorded in Westminster cathedral, places one of them, the parody mass based on Morales' motet Jubilate Deo Omnis Terra, in the appropriate liturgical context. It starts with the sound of a service bell, followed by an organ voluntary, the first of four pieces by Frescobaldi dotted through the sequence. Then a plainchant introit precedes the Kyrie and the Gloria of Victoria's mass. The remaining movements of the Ordinary of the mass are then interleaved with the chanted mass propers, as well as with the other organ pieces and one of the most jewel-like of Victoria's motets, the six-voice Vidi Speciosam. It makes a compelling whole, sung with rapt purity by the male voices of Westminster Cathedral choir - though Victoria himself might have expected a more gutsy, openly expressive approach.