Early Music

Ludford – Missa Benedicta 
Choir of New College, Oxford / Edward Higginbottom 
K617  K617 206

Nicholas Ludford, said to have remained a staunch Catholic all his life, is considered to be one of the most innovative composers in early Tudor England, even if his music is not as widely known as some of his contemporaries. This disc gave reviewer Fabrice Fitch a welcome opportunity to hear again some of Ludford’s six-voice settings, relishing “an exhilarating sense of confidence in formal planning, and real melodic inspiration” and praising the trebles of the New College Choir for their sense of line and uninamity of purpose in music difficult to master.