Ensemble Plus Ultra – From Spain to Eternity, The Sacred Polyphony of El Greco’s Toledo

“A crack squad of the finest British early music singers” Early Music Today said about Ensemble Plus Ultra, but as regular readers of my reviews will know I’m no fan of classical music, but only a few weeks ago I was mentioning to Linette that I really quite liked the odd bit of choral music…and then this dropped into my virtual postbox via HIGHRESAUDIO and on the Archiv Produktion label.

Historian, Richard Kagan says that “El Greco and Toledo are one” as this Spanish city was Cretan born Domenikos Theotokopoulos’ home for almost 40 years and it is sacred music intrinsically bound to this city that From Spain to Eternity pays tribute.

All the music is choral and the work of just three composers: Alonso Lobo (1555 – 1617), Cristobel De Morales (1500 -1553) and Francisco Guerrero (1528 – 1599) and it really is quite beautiful.

Ensemble Plus Ultra were formed in 2001 and aim to “promote historically-aware performances of liturgical marvels from the Renaissance” and they do sound glorious on this recording.

I confess to knowing nothing about the music herein but doubt that those more in the know will be in any way disappointed by what they find on “From Spain to Eternity.

The record has certainly whetted my appetite to explore this particular musical niche a little further.