I have to declare an interest in the music of Francisco de Penalosa: for years I have been enthusing about him as a composer, the best of his generation at the courts of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the nearest the Iberian peninsula came to rivalling Josquin in his own lifetime. (Morales, I have to admit, did so still more effectively after the great Netherlander's death, but then it is more than likely that Penalosa was at some time Morales's teacher at Seville Cathedral.)
Enough of the history lesson: the question is whether, now that recordings are available of his complete motets (Pro Cantione Antiqua on Hyperion, 7/92) and of the two whole Masses on this new disc sung by the Westminster Cathedral Choir, I have been forced to temper my enthusiasm by finding that the music works less well in performance than it appears to on paper. Happily this has not proved the case: both Masses are fine recordings and serve Penalosa's music well, and if I add that, in each case, we are not presented with the only way to interpret it, I am nevertheless very content that the works will now gain a wider audience and attract other groups to perform them.
The Missa Ave Maria, the showpiece among Penalosa's Masses, has in fact been recorded before by the Spanish group Taller Ziryab, but is not easily available outside Spain and, at the risk of being accused of British imperialism in matters of the interpretation of renaissance polyphony, it is a problematic recording in more ways than one: the addition of a wide variety of instruments, including percussion; the use of a poor edition, notably in the retention of a sustained dominant seventh chord at the end of the Christe; and the general standard of competence. On this new disc we have one of the best choirs in the world for this kind of polyphony, Richard Runciman Terry (director of the choir, 1902-24) having established a tradition for performing the works of sixteenth-century Spanish composers that has been preserved ever since. Their many more recent recordings of this repertory have been much and justly acclaimed, and this is another feather in their cap. The boys' voices still rival those of other choirs, though just occasionally their very eagerness seems to result here in a slightly breathy, rather forced quality, and at times the recording favours the top line just too much.
There is, of course, the possibility that these Masses were not originally performed with boys: the chapels of Ferdinand and Isabella, by the time Penalosa entered the service of the Aragonese royal chapel in 1498, included roughly 20 and 30 adult singers respectively. However, the question as to whether the boys who were trained in their chapels to sing chant and polyphony actually participated in these polyphonic Mass settings must remain open. That is what I mean when I say that this represents only one way to perform them; the clef combinations would also suggest downward transposition and thus a choir of adult male voices would be perfectly feasible. (On the other hand, Penalosa's works retained some currency at other cathedral establishments in the Spanish kingdoms rather later in the sixteenth century, and may well have been sung with boys' voices—and even certain instruments.) This is not an entirely academic point, because in these recordings, perhaps especially in the Missa Ave Maria, the top line does dominate the texture when the writing suggests a greater equality of the vocal lines, a meshing that is not always quite achieved here (more, possibly, because of the way it has been recorded than in actual performance).
My only other reservation is that much of the music is taken very, very slowly; I have a feeling that Penalosa's polyphony was intended to flow a little more freely than this, especially in the Kyrie and Sanctus of the Marian Mass. This apart, there are some marvellous moments: the excitement of the triple section at ''Cum sancto spiritu'' in the Gloria of the Missa Ave Maria, with its upward leaping basses; the intensity of the sustained passages in the Credos of both Masses; the contemplative tone of the Agnus dei movements and so on. This disc reveals even more than Pro Cantione Antiqua's motet volume the extent to which Penalosa paved the way for the siglo de oro of Spanish music: unmissable.'