Victoria: Lamentations of Jeremiah; Padilla: Lamentations for Maundy Thursday/ Tallis Scholars

One of the most influential choral recordings of our time was of Victoria's Tenebrae Responsories, sung with raw passion half a century ago by the Westminster Cathedral Choir under George Malcolm. Over their 30 years of recording, the Tallis Scholars have always cultivated a far smoother, more harmonious texture: Victoria's Lamentations, also for the Holy Week liturgy, are less dramatic than the Responsories, but are powerfully intense and desolate. Under Peter Phillips the pungency of the text is occasionally sacrificed to the beauty of the sound, but the balance is perfect and the recording (in Merton College chapel) is glorious.