There are a number of strands that run through the Gabrielis' discography but one unifying theme is the mood of celebration, be it the unbridled joy of Christmas festivities like 'A Venetian Christmas' (a glorious weaving together of music by Giovanni Gabrieli and Cipriano de Rore), Palestrina's Missa Hodie Christus Natus Est, and Handel's Messiah, or the darker reds and golds of Morales's Mass for the Feast of St Isidore of Seville, or even the intensity of Victoria's Requiem, which celebrates a spiritual union between man and God that really does inspire a sense of awe in its listeners. But what I find so totally engaging about these recordings is that coming-together, as if in a musical crucible, of scholarly research and passionate, living, imaginative, joyous musicianship.