Cathedral Sounds: Johannes Ockeghem. Rene Clemencic Edition, Vol. 5. Rene Clemencic Consort. Arte Nova Classics 74321 56351-2.

Cathedral Sounds: Johannes Ockeghem. Rene Clemencic Edition, Vol. 5. Rene Clemencic Consort. Arte Nova Classics 74321 56351-2.

Here's a disc that lives up to its name. The three compositions presented, indeed, are resonant with cathedral sound. Yet the booklet says it was recorded at W.A.R. Studio, Vienna. That may be, but the effect is the same: a clear, up-front organ and several tenors in a large reflective setting.

Arte Nova Classics is a budget-priced label distributed by BMG, obviously intended to compete with Naxos, another thing for which we can be grateful to Naxos. Like Naxos, Arte Nova is issuing new digital recordings (this one from 1997) in sometimes spectacular sound for very low cost. Yes, like this one. The Ockeghem works included here are the Missa sine nomine, Ut Heremita solus, and Alma redemptoris Mater. OK, not exactly bestsellers, and these pieces of music are, in fact, rather interchangeable and probably forgettable except to the devotee. But they are pleasing ecclesiastical pieces, Gothic devotional polyphony of the 15th century to be more precise, and they are pleasingly performed by the five-member Rene Clemencic Consort, consisting of positive organ, counter tenor, two regular tenors, and a Renaissance trombone. Since this is the fifth edition of early music with the Consort on Arte Nova, I assume there is more where this came from. All the better.