TORONTO STAR July 2003
on recording of the Mass of Tournai: "We are all, as a Chinese fortune cookie has doubtless observed, selectively ignorant, but no record label in recent years has done more to illuminate this truth than Naxos, with its burgeoning catalogue of worthwhile music long ago consigned to silence. The 14th century Mass of Tournai and the 15th-century St Luke Passion represent respectively the earliest complete polyphonic settings of the Ordinary of the Mass and the Passion narrative (taken from St. Luke's Gospel), yet who, today, save a few specialists, knows these anonymous late-medieval masterworks? On this recording, the six movements of the Mass of Tournai are heard without intervening plainchant to aid appreciation of the music's diversity and the splendid eight voice New College, Oxford, TONUS PEREGRINUS deliberately varies the ensemble colour in the Passion to highlight expressive demands. Congratulations to Antony Pitts and his expert singers."
EARLY MUSIC REVIEW July 2003
on recording of the Mass of Tournai: "...I enjoyed the Mass very much. Compared with other performances, it sounds more like a piece of music and less like a historical demonstration, and the music benefits from it.....Most of the Passion is chant, nicely sung by Benjamin Rayfield (Evangelist) and Francis Brett (Christ).....The minimal music is there to give a religious, not a musical experience. But the disc is so cheap that it shouldn't be a deterrent, and it may ease insomnia, relieve stress or convert you to Christianity."
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE July 2003
on recording of the Mass of Tournai: "This is another very enterprising disc from Naxos which couples the earliest-known polyphonic Mass setting with the earliest-known setting of the St Luke Passion. Both have been recorded before...but this recording provides worthy competition for those past efforts.....The choir has to cope with a variety of styles from the switchback, archaic rhythms of the Kyrie (snappily done, and with nice dynamic contrast) to the complex melismas of the Amen at the end of the Gloria (performed with captivating excitement)..."
THE TELEGRAPH 16 June 2003
on recording of the Mass of Tournai: "This enterprising disc brings together the earliest known cycle of polyphonic Mass movements, written for the cathedral at Tournai in Belgium in the early 14th Century, together with the first surviving Passion setting to include composed music as well as plainchant.....TONUS PEREGRINUS sing with a freshness and enthusiasm that bring this very early music to life so engagingly as to captivate even those coming to it for the first time. Their performance of the early-15th-century English St Luke Passion is equally persuasive. Despite its apparent simplicity, there is a moving and dramatic combination of beautifully paced plainchant, sung by Benjamin Rayfield as the Evangelist and Francis Brett as Jesus, and subtly characterised polyphonic settings of the words of other individuals and the crowd. Congratulations to Naxos for making this very fine music available at an irresistably affordable price."
THE OBSERVER 15 June 2003
on recording of the Mass of Tournai: "Students of early music will relish the eerie beauties of these two anonymous works, performed with crystal clarity by the ever reliable (and pioneering) TONUS PEREGRINUS.....a rare collector's item of hauntingly spare charm."
HMV CHOICE
on recording of the Mass of Tournai: "...TONUS PEREGRINUS, an eight-strong vocal ensemble from Oxford, blow the dust from this archaic music and invoke images of cloistered courts and candlelit processions, ideal for meditation and relaxation."
SUNDAY TIMES 18 May 2003
on recording of the Mass of Tournai: "...Two firsts here..."
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