Review: Stile Antico's program centers on Thomas Tallis's magnificent seven-part Christmas Mass, based on the festive plainchant Puer natus est ('A boy is born'). The mass is interspersed with seasonal Tudor music, including William Byrd's exquisite Propers for the fourth Sunday of Advent, responsories by Taverner and Sheppard, Robert White's exuberant setting of the Magnificat, and Tallis's own sublime Videte miraculum.

Songlist: Videte miraculum, Audivi vocem de caelo, Rorate caeli desuper (Gradualia I, 1605), Gloria (Missa Puer natus est), Tollite portas (Gradualia I), Sanctus & Benedictus (Missa puer natus est), Ave Maria (Gradualia I), Agnus Dei (Missa Puer natus est), Ecce virgo concipiet (Gradualia I), Magnificat, Puer natus est, Verbum caro

Review: Less well-known than Thomas Tallis, Sheppard's fame has spread slowly, because his compositions only made it to the twentieth century in manuscript form and many of them are incomplete. What survives bears all the hallmarks of greatness. This recording provides ample evidence of his bold, rich and individual harmony, as well as an inspired knack for compositional passion, while still adhering to Archbishop Cranmer's protestant tastes for concise word setting. The performance captured here is at the same lofty standard that Stile Antico's earlier recordings attained - almost perfect. This group engages the listener like no other, with the purpose of soloists, the tonal evenness of an ensemble, and with a clarity that is ground-breaking.

Songlist: Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria, The Lord's Prayer, I give you a new commandment, Media vita, Christ rising again, Haste thee, O God, Te Deum

Review: The beautiful and often erotic poetry of the Song of Songs found some of its most sumptuous settings in the motets of Palestrina, Lassus, Victoria and other Continental 16th-century masters. Sung here by Britain's "brightest new stars" of Renaissance polyphony, the singers of Stile Antico, these staples of the choral repertory have never before sounded so vital or texturally rich.

Songlist: Ego Flos Campi, Osculetur Me, Antiphon: Dum Esset Rex, Surge, Propera Amica Mea, Quam Pulchra Es, Antiphon: Nigra Sum, Veni, Dilecte Mi, Vadam Et Circuibo, Alleluia: Tota Pulchra Es, Ego Flos Campi, Nigra Sum, Antiphon: Laeva Eius, Hortus Conclusus, Nigra Sum, Antiphon: Speciosa Facta es, Veni, Dilecte Mi, Trahe Me Post Te, Antiphon: Iam Hiems Transiit, Vidi Speciosam

Review: For their spectacular debut recording, the exciting young British early-music vocal group Stile Antico presents a program of English Renaissance music associated with the office of Compline (absorbed by the Anglican Church into Evensong), the service that ends the monastic liturgical day. A who's-who of 16th-century British composers, including Thomas Tallis, William Byrd and John Sheppard, are represented here by hymns, antiphons, responsories, motets and psalms-the occasion not only for music of intimacy, elegance and reflection, but for flights of breathtaking canonic and contrapuntal invention and harmonic daring.

Songlist: Libera Nos I & II - Shepard, Salva Nos, Domine - Plainchant, Christe, Qui Lux Es Et Dies - Byrd, In Pace In Idipsum - Shepard, In Manus Tuas - Tallis, Jesu Salvator Saeculi Verbum - Shepard, In Manus Tuas I - Shepard, In Manus Tuas II & III - Shepard, Miserere Nostri Domine - Plainchant, Miserere Nostri Domine - Tallis, Miserere Mihi Domine - Byrd, In Pace In Idipsum - Tallis, Christe Qui Lux Es Et Dies - White, Veni, Domine - Plainchant, Nunc Dimittis - Byrd, Te Lucis Ante Terminum - Tallis, Gaude, Virgo Mater Christi - Aston

Review: Grammy-nominated vocal ensemble Stile Antico returns with its second recording for harmonia mundi. Heavenly Harmonies juxtaposes the highly expressive Latin motets of William Byrd (c. 1540-1632) with the austere, homophonic psalm tunes of Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585) in a performance notable for the British group's "staggeringly beautiful singing" (The Sunday Times) and recorded in a fittingly majestic acoustic. At the heart of the religious disputes which ravaged 16th-century England, the towering figures of the Catholic Tallis and Protestant Byrd embody two opposing tendencies. What is sometimes overlooked is how much the motets from Byrd's Cantiones sacrae I and II (1589 and 1591) owe to the concise and expressive language pioneered by Tallis a generation earlier, when he also contributed the nine psalm tunes to a new psalter by Archbishop Matthew Parker (1567) - printed but regrettably never offered for sale. The program also includes Byrd's Mass Propers for Pentecost from his Gradualia of 1607.

Songlist: 9 Psalm Tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter, Motets:, Third Tune: Why fum'th in Flight, Vigilate, Fifth Tune: E'en Like the Hunted Hind, Ne irascaris Domine, Second Tune: Let God arise, Exsurge Domine, Sixth Tune: Expend, O Lord, Infelix ego, Eighth Tune: God grant with grace, Laetentur Coeli, First Tune: Man blest no doubt, Quis est homo, Veni Creator: Come Holy Ghost, Introit: Spiritus Domini, Offertory: Confirma hoc Deus, Communion: Factus est repente, Seventh Tune: Why brag'st in malice, Tribulationes Civitatum, Fourth Tune: O Come in One to Praise the Lord, Laudibus in Sanctis