Jeffrey Skidmore: Ex Cathedra - Peerson: Latin Motets

The 1604 Royal May Day celebrations�the �Proms in the Park� of their day�headlined with a madrigal by Martin Peerson. His career can be traced through posts at Westminster Abbey and St Paul�s Cathedral, and his powerful patrons enabled a considerable quantity of music to be printed and published.Today little remains. These fifteen Latin motets survive in a single, incomplete source. Their performance here�the first for some three hundred years�is possible thanks to a pioneering reconstruction (by Richard Rastall of Antico Edition) of the missing voice part.Despite their pre-Reformation Latin texts (at a time where few institutions were permitted such Popery) and Peerson�s 1606 conviction for recusancy, the composer�s evident position at the heart of the new Anglican establishment confirms the overall esteem in which he was held. And the music more than lives up to this reputation�harmonies of sustained intensity and an intricate understanding of the contemporary imitative technique lend the collection a rare cohesion and give testimony to a man of immense compassion and faith.The Ex Cathedra Consort�the twelve-voice �soloistic� ensemble from Ex Cathedra�gives performances every bit as good as the group�s enviable reputation would predict.