ENSEMBLE PLUS ULTRA was founded in 2001 by Michael Noone and Warren Trevelyan-Jones with the express purpose of promoting historically-aware performances of Spanish liturgical music of the Renaissance. Comprising ‘a crack squad of the finest British early music singers’ (Stephen Rice writing in Early Music Today), the group is distinguished from other early music ensembles by its innovative performances of unearthed treasures and reconstructions of important musical and liturgical events.

Our programmes have included many first modern performances, including works recently discovered in Spanish archives and edited for performance by Michael Noone and Graeme Skinner. Concerts have featured previously unknown masterworks by Morales (dubbed ‘the light of Spain in music’) and discovered by Michael in the archives of Toledo cathedral. Historical reconstructions have included a votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin as it might have been sung at the Court of Castille around the time of the death of Isabella in 1504.

The compositions by Morales discovered by Michael at Toledo were the subject of the group’s debut recording in 2005 on the Glossa label, ‘Morales en Toledo’, which has been met with great acclaim. In the same year Plus Ultra released the first commercial recording dedicated solely to the music of Fernando de las Infantas, the Spanish-born composer and theologian who settled in Rome in the 1560s and published his three volumes of motets in Venice a decade later.

Whilst Spanish music is the mainstay of Plus Ultra’s repertoire, we are equally at home performing music of other nations: 2007 will see the release of three CDs for Glossa. One CD presents a world première recording of a recently-discovered setting of the Song of Songs by Gioseffo Zarlino (1517-90) and another presents the musical canons of Atalanta Fugiens (1617) an alchemical emblem book by Michael Maier (1569-1622), personal physician to the Habsburg Emperor Rudolph II.

In June 2006 Plus Ultra toured Spain with our regular partners His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts and Schola Antiqua in a programme of music by Guerrero, evoking the lost world of Seville Cathedral in the Golden Age. The programme, including a world premiere performance of Guerrero’s stunning Missa Super flumina Bablyonis has been recorded by Glossa and will be released in 2007.

Toledo Cathedral:

View of the south transept with the 1548 sanctuary screen to the left