Includes previously unreleased gems (4,6-10,12-13)
by James Bowman, paul Esswood and James Griffett with the English Consort of Viols and organist Bradford Tracey.

Pro Cantione Antiqua, Directed by Mark Brown:(Tracks 1-3,5,11,14), James Bowman:(4,6,9), Paul Esswood:(4,8,9,12), James Grifett:(7,8,10,13)

AllMusic Review by James Manheim
Several factors come together to make this an exceptionally satisfying item among the various recordings devoted to specific liturgical services by English collegiate choirs. One is that Ash Wednesday is rarely the recipient of this treatment on recordings: the inward quality, diverging from the festive mood of Christmas recordings and the like, is quite compelling. Another factor is that the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, under director Andrew Nethsingha has a combination of fervency and clarity that is always impressive and is uniquely well suited to this particular project. Third, the immediacy of a live performance (the album was made on Ash Wednesday, 2019) is strikingly rendered here. There are a few minor imperfections that only add, like those in a painting of the period, to the effect of the whole. Nethsingha recounts how he recruited a pair of boy sopranos who could handle the high Cs in the Miserere of Gregorio Allegri, only to have one of the two drop out due to illness; the second acquits himself admirably. That famed Allegri work is part of a beautifully constructed program that proceeds from brilliance (the Allegri) to compact Anglican harmonies (Thomas Weelkes), to the deeply inward quality of Byrd's Ne irascaris, Domine, which has rarely been so beautifully performed. The whole has the effect of a spiritual journey, and it's enhanced by sound using the choir's microphones, installed for the group's webcasts, rather than those of the BBC that were present on the same occasion. The group really inhabits the sound environment and the space. Bravo. Bravissimo.