Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500–1553), Missa mille regretz  Morales was one of the most important Spanish composers of the sixteenth century, renowned in his day as an exceptional talent.  That he is not better known is perhaps due to his reputation as an arrogant and difficult employee, who rarely held a job for more than a few years.  This parody mass is based on a chanson by Josquin de Prez, and is composed in the unusual Phrygian mode, whose melodic outline gives the music a simple, yet plangent flavour.

Imogen Holst (1907–1984), A hymne to Christ  Imogen Holst was the only child of her father Gustav, and was one of the most important figures in British music in the mid-twentieth century.  Working with Benjamin Britten as joint artistic directors of the Aldeburgh Festival, she brought it international renown in her twenty years in post from 1956.  As a composer she studied at the Royal College of Music and was strongly influenced by Vaughan Williams as well as her own studies of English folk music.

Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810–1876), Wash me throughly    Born into a dynasty of musicians, poets, and clergymen, Samuel Sebastian Wesley was a chorister the Chapel Royal, before holding successive posts at Hereford, Exeter, Winchester, and Gloucester cathedrals.  Perhaps the most important church musician in England in the nineteenth century, he was responsible for a significant increase in the standards of cathedral singing, technical developments of the organ, and also left an important body of liturgical music.  Today’s anthem is soloistic, dramatic, and surprising: expressive and learned by turns, and with a great sense of the theatrical potential of its text.