Tomas Luis de Victoria's Requiem, as performed by The Gabrieli Consort under Paul MacCreesh

Songs of Hildegard von Bingen as performed by Emma Kirkby & Gothic Voices

Any lute music played by Paul O'Dette

The Monteverdi Vespers on that old DGG Archiv boxed set performed by (???) Nicolaus Harnoncourt… I think. Can't remember offhand.

Spem in Alium as performed The Clerkes of Oxenford (a third higher than the original).

Anything by Robert Carver - particularly the magnificent "Taverner Browne Carver" album by Andrew Parrott's Taverner Choir.

Nativity to Candlemas by the King's College Choir


Yes, I know, that's seven. And counting.

I love seeing lists of people's favourites. They usually lead me to new treasures I hadn't discovered before, or had forgotten.

What on EARTH is "pretentious" about early music albums? Especially when you consider that "early music" includes a huge number of trad folk tunes - ones that everybody still plays at ceilidhs, many of which go back to 16th-century sources and were probably heard long before they were notated and collected in those. I seriously Do Not Get this sort of dividing-&-labelling.