All these recordings were made in the astonishingly short period between January 1971 and the end of 1975. They fall into two broad groups, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (“The Art of Courtly Love” and Dufay’s Mass), and the sixteenth and early seventeenth (“Monteverdi’s Contemporaries”, Praetorius and the dance music on Testament). The earlier discs were recorded in 1972-3, a couple of years before “the Art of the Netherlands”. The latter is in some ways the more polished collection, but there is such tremendous excitement on so many tracks of “Courtly Love” (listen to the progressively more Hendrixian inflexions of the Istampitta Tre fontane) that one happily overlooks the occasional wrinkle; besides, Munrow’s experiments with instrumental combinations turn out some real gems. The ‘fourteenth-century avant-garde’ section is especially fine in this respect (the combination of tenor and two crumhorns in the ‘Phiton’ pieces, for example). Although much has been re-recorded since, a good number of Munrow’s first performances remain unsurpassed....

It is a real joy to welcome these essential recordings to the CD repertory. Had David Munrow lived (he would have been only 54 this year), there would have been more, so much more. That he himself chose otherwise is all the more poignant and sadly ironic, for joy in making music of any period, beyond the exotic instruments and the scholarship, is the overriding message of these discs. What more can one say?

-- Fabrice Fitch, Gramophone [9/1996]