Recorded to celebrate The Tallis Scholars' 50th Anniversary, John Sheppard's exuberant Missa Cantate is an ideal work to highlight their pioneering achievements. The Tallis Scholars first album of music by John Sheppard, released in 1989, created a new icon of English Renaissance polyphony - Media vita. Their second Sheppard album may well do the same for his only Votive Antiphon on a festal scale, Gaude virgo Christiphera.