Magnificat - Philippe Rogier - The Scotsman

If all his music was as richly grained and dramatic as the two masses and motet recorded here, then it's a tragedy that the bulk of Phillipe Rogier's output was either burnt in a Madrid palace fire or destroyed in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. He lived a short life at the close of the 16th century, Flanders-born but active mainly in the Spanish court. Thus the delicious mix of South European polychoral textures and the seamless polyphony of the north. Both the Missa Domine Dominus Noster and Missa Domine in virtute tua (based on Palestrina's motet) reflect that intoxicating stylistic synthesis, performed here with rigorous precision by the singers of Magnificat, accompanied by His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts, under Philip Cave's direction.