John Sheppard was, along with Thomas Tallis, the greatest English composer whose career spanned the Reformation of the mid-16th century. But unlike his better-known contemporary, Sheppard wrote relatively little music for the new English order of service. Through his English anthems and service music Tallis’s name has lived on through the centuries, and curiosity fuelled by these works led to a remarkable revival of interest in his Latin music - almost all of which had vanished from the repertory - in the early part of this century. Sheppard, on the other hand, whose music was almost entirely for the Latin rite, vanished totally from the repertory until the pioneering work of David Wulstan in the 1960s. Since then Sheppard has gradually gained parity with not just Tallis, but also with the leading continental composers of the time.
The exuberant Cantate Mass is set for six voices. Although it may or may not be an early work, its variety of full and reduced voice textures certainly place it firmly in the tradition of the Eton Choirbook composers of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.