The Choir of Westminster Cathedral is world famous for its staple of plainsong and polyphony. The choir explores a wealth of music from this repertoire for the richest of liturgical seasons: Holy Week. Masterpieces of the Renaissance by William Byrd and Tomás Luis de Victoria are woven together with ancient Gregorian chants, including Pange lingua and Adoro te, and later penitential works by Anton Bruckner and Maurice Duruflé. Three of the Cathedral’s illustrious Masters of Music, all of whom have contributed to the Church’s treasury of liturgical music, are also represented. The sequence culminates in a setting of Saint John Henry Newman’s poem Praise to the Holiest in the height by Sir Richard Runciman Terry, the Cathedral’s pioneering Master of Music.

This new recording from Martin Baker and the Westminster Cathedral Choir features the three masses of William Byrd, paired with the Latin hymn Ave verum corpus. The album celebrates Byrd's Catholic liturgical music in two ways. Most obviously, it addresses great and timeless works. But at the same time it reminds us that the revival of Byrd's music in the late nineteenth century was pioneered by Roman Catholic church choirs. The recording celebrates a revival of Catholic choral traditions no less than it celebrates the works themselves.