Adorna comes from the same musical space once occupied by Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble that produced four best selling albums, Officium, Mnemosyne, Official Novum and Remember Me, My Dear, with Officium among the most successful releases in the ECM catalogue, thought to be approaching two million sales. This haunting music finding an audience across many musical genres.

When they made their final album in 2014 the musical space they created went largely unoccupied until 2018 when Opus Anglicanum and Jason Rebello began performing concerts together. Like the Hilliards, Opus Anglicanum are firmly rooted in early music, particularly the hypnotic repertoire of plainsong. Unlike the Hilliards with Garbarek, Rebello’s piano offers an additional harmonic element in addition to melodic counter melody. Plainsong, of course, is a single line, which Rebello successfully illuminates with subtle but effective harmonic inversions, but the Anglicanums also move into simple Tudor polyphonic songs and more modern works. It imposes a considerable challenge on Rebello of remaining true to the music’s original intent, yet revealing his own musical personality which he succeeds in doing; his invention and touch are wholly sympathetic while his musical instincts are at one with his musical surroundings.

Although reviewed via download, these recordings seem to lack, perhaps, the depth and resonance of the ECM Hilliards but seems a minor cavil in what is an album of great integrity and beauty.