Once again the Choir of Westminster Abbey, under the direction of James O’Donnell, live up to their excellent reputation with a wonderful performance, not on this occasion in the Abbey but in St Alban’s, Holborn, the hidden gem between the City of London and the West End.

This CD features Taverner’s Missa Mater Christi sanctissima, bringing to life an often forgotten about early sixteenth century work and his magnificent Western Wynde Mass. These wonderful masterpieces from sixteenth-century England show Taverner at his very best. The English composer and organist, John Taverner, 1490-1545, is regarded by many as one of the most important English composers of his era.

In 1526, Taverner was appointed by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey as the first Organist and Master of the Choristers at Christ Church, Oxford. The college had been founded the previous year by Cardinal Wolsey, and was then known as Cardinal College. In 1531 the college was suppressed, but refounded in 1532 by Henry VIII, as King Henry VIII’s College. Then in 1546, following the break with Rome, Henry VIII, who had acquired great wealth through the dissolution of the monasteries in England, refounded the college as Christ Church.

Taverner’s Western Wynde Mass, the second section of the disc, is most unusual in that it is based on a popular secular song of the time with the lyrics ‘Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow, The small raine down can raine. Cryst, if my love were in my armes, And I in my bedde again!’ In Taverner’s Mass the theme tune appears in each of the four parts, and is repeated nine times in each section.

As always with Hyperion the Notes that accompany the CD, these by Jeremy Summerley, the conductor and Director of Music at St Peter’s College, Oxford, make excellent reading and are to be highly commended.