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Reviews

American Record Guide
Say hello to yet another superb English chamber choir, introducing another obscure early English composer, again courtesy of ASV’s diligent enterprise.

Robert Ramsey (c.1590-1644) has been all but ignored in recordings, and he remains typecast as a “minor” composer of the early Stuart era, languishing under the shadow of such Elizabethan survivors as Byrd, Gibbons, and Tomkins, and then upstaged by the younger Lawes brothers. Very little is known about his life: he served at Trinity College, Cambridge, for the latter decades of his life and he left a confusingly diverse output.

There is genuine musical interest in all this material, and present-day choirs might well look into the two sacred madrigals, How the mighty are fallen (David’s lament for Jonathan), and When David heard (David’s lament for Absalom), both on texts from II Samuel very popular with composers, and both pieces of great power and imagination.

Cave and his group perform with consistent artistry, intelligence, and beauty of ensemble sound. The small-church recording ambience is most apt, and the accompanying materials (notes, texts, translations) are exemplary. This is a superlative debut for Cave’s Magnificat and for Ramsey’s unjustly neglected music.