Title: Amateurish and Unauthentic
Product review: There is a case to be made for instrumental accompaniment of polyphonic masses, though many musicologists are hostile to it, but there is no musical or historical justification for the kind of mixed consort used on this CD. The viol da gamba, for instance, hadn't even been invented in the lifetime of Dufay. Aside from such purisms, however, this is an out-of-date amateurish version of Dufay -- "early" Early Music, around 1974. It should be retired. If you want to hear where the art has arrived in the meantime, choose any disk by The Orlando Consort, Ensemble Organum, Ensemble Officium, The Clerks' Group, Capella Alamire, Ensemble Clement Janequin. There are NO well-done CDs of Dufay era masses with instruments; I say this with utmost sadness, since I am an instrumentalist.
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