CARVER Missa Dum sacrum mysterium. O bone Jesu. Anon Dum sacrum mysterium. Magnificat • Harry Christophers, dir; The Sixteen • CORO 16051 (68:10 Text and Translation)

First issued as Collins 14782 a decade ago, this came at the end of the label’s existence and no review copy was received. The Mass and motet had been recorded a few years earlier by Capella Nova in a set of the composer’s complete works, but only one of the discs was received (15:4). Hence this is a welcome reissue. Robert Carver (c. 1484–c. 1568) was the leading Scottish composer of the era, a canon of the chapel royal in the time of James IV. After he fell at Flodden Field in 1513, this Mass may have been sung at the coronation of his infant son, James V, a few days before the feast of St. Michael (Sept. 29). The cantus firmus of the Mass is taken from the antiphon for the Magnificat of that feast and is sung here before the Mass. The chant is identified as the Sarum use, but it differs only in detail from the common use still found in the Antiphonale monasticum. The 10-voice work is sung one voice to a part with greater finesse than was heard in the earlier recording, if one can judge by the disc of other masses that the group sang.

The 19-voice O bone Jesu (heard on the same Capella Nova disc) is a splendid work. Here it is sung as if in private devotion, whereas Capella Nova and Andrew Parrott’s Taverner Choir (13:4) both made more of its ceremonial possibilities. The Magnificat is an anonymous work that has been argued to be English or Scottish in origin, Carver’s authorship being only a possibility. It is reminiscent of the Eton Choirbook, but a Scottish composer might have tried to provide a familiar sound for James IV’s queen, Henry VII’s daughter.

The Sixteen have offered a splendid single disc of Robert Carver. If you have not met the composer before, this is the one to buy.

FANFARE: J. F. Weber