• Tracks

Chastised for 'excesses in his life and conversation', Michael Wise lived a notoriously dissolute life which ended when he was hit about the head and 'kill'd downright' by the night-watchman of Salisbury Cathedral. Thus was St Paul's robbed of it's forthcoming Master of the Choristers, and history of one of the period's most prolific and accomplished composers. Geoffrey Webber and his choir pay testament to the more respectable music-making that is Wise's legacy. Thomas Weelkes is remembered as one of the outstanding English composers of the seventeenth century. This survey of his services, verse anthems and sacred madrigals features first recordings of several works in new reconstructions by scholar Peter James. Benjamin Nicholas's Tewkesbury choir delivers telling performances which passionately convey the range, imagination and technical accomplishment of Weelkes' settings.