The first disc issued on this new vocal ensemble's label makes a striking appearance, utterly professional in its presentation, with a varied program of music, an intelligent note reflecting the latest research on Dufay, and excellent color photos, all supplied in a digipack. It's hardly a surprise that the disc fulfills the elevated expectations. Metcalfe has pursued a career in performance with many groups, but since 1999 he has been directing Blue Heron in the Boston area. The program offers a Sanctus, motets, hymns, and chansons, a representative look at the music of Dufay, along with a couple of works of his contemporaries. One is an anonymous motet-chanson found in the Dijon chansonnier between two other anonymous pieces, but both of these were attributed to Ockeghem in other sources, and this piece has more recently been attributed to him as well. It belongs here because of its antecedents, the motet-chansons of Dufay. The rondeau by Hugo de Lantins (not to be confused with Arnold, who may or may not have been his brother) is included because both Lantins were associated with Dufay when he was serving the Malatestas in Rimini; Hugo and Dufay each wrote one movement of a Gloria-Credo Mass pair. Dunstable is also mentioned here as the possible composer of a verse of Ave maris stella.  This debut marks Blue Heron as a leading new actor in the field of early Renaissance music, both for studying the sources and bringing them to life. The three isorhythmic motets, neatly placed at beginning, middle, and end, are outstanding contributions, even if this genre has had special attention on records lately (22:2, 24:1, 29:4 for all three of these). The two alternatim-praxis hymns were both included in Schola Hungarica's partial collection (13:1), but the rest of the hymns have been neglected on disc, one of the glaring lacunas in his discography. The seven chansons are a fine counterweight to the main recorded collections devoted to this genre, which are all instrumentally accompanied. The Sanctus papale, recorded by Paul Boepple and twice by Konrad Ruhland (2:5 for the newer one, now on a Sony CD) has been recorded only once in the CD era, an unfortunate voices-cum-instruments disc under Giuseppe Maletto reviewed elsewhere. It is an interesting work that adds the Eucharistic hymn Ave verum corpus as a trope, an entirely suitable notion for a Mass movement sung at the consecration of the Body and Blood of Christ. The notes for Maletto's recording admit that it was probably written for the papal choir during one of the periods of Dufay's membership, making the instruments entirely inappropriate. Hence this fifth recording is the first one that offers the music as the papal choir might have sung it. Altogether, this is one of the finest Dufay collections to come out in recent years, a nice survey to complement the more tightly focused programs devoted to the composer. --J.F. Weber, FanfareWe should have reviewed this months ago; Scott Metcalfe and his father (an EMR subscriber) kept asking if I'd received it, and at last I have. It was worth waiting for. It doesn't have the hard edge that made groups like Gothic Voices so exciting, nor are instruments entirely excluded from chansons. But Scott knows what he is doing, as do his singers (try the quick J'atendray tant and for contrast the following Mon cuer me fait) and the performances convince though I reckon that, in this sort of music, if you notice even a a brief cadential rallentando, it's too much. This disc shows off the mellifluous beauty of much of the music. It is somewhat laid-back, but not overly so. If I say that it is an ideal introduction to Dufay, I don't wish to discourage more experienced listeners. It's a good, unhackneyed program: buy it! --Clifford Bartlett, Early Music Review (UK)This remarkable disc focuses on sacred and secular music from Guillaume DuFay, one of the towering figures of Renaissance choral music, performed by a startlingly fine choral ensemble from the Boston area. The mix of spritely secular chansons and more restrained devotional music works better than one might expect, and the Blue Heron Renaissance Choir is absolutely top-notch. Here's hoping we don't have to wait another eight years for their next release. --Rick Anderson, CD Hotlist