A New Heaven -

The Sixteen / Harry Christophers

UCJ 1795732 Buy now

‘A New Heaven’
Bainton And I saw a new heaven Bairstow Blessed City, heavenly Salem Gardiner Evening Hymn Goodall The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) W Harris Faire is the Heaven Howells Like as the hart Parry I was glad. Jerusalem. My soul, there is a country Rutter The Lord is my shepherd Stainer I saw the Lord Stanford Beati quorum via, Op 38 No 3 C Wood O thou the central orb. Hail, gladdening light
The Sixteen / Harry Christophers with
Robert Quinney org
UCJ 179 5732

The Sixteen sing luminously in this collection of English choral classics

Though perhaps best known for their association with early music, The Sixteen are no strangers to the performance of the romantic vocal repertoire, as fine recent recordings of Requiems by Brahms and Fauré amply attest. And this recording of “cherries” picked judiciously from the flowering of 19th- and 20th-century English cathedral music only serves to confirm the versatility of Christophers and his ensemble (along with some sensitive playing from organist Robert Quinney).

Some lovers of this repertoire may prefer an all-male “boys and men” sound rather than this sound of mature mixed voices (I like both), and there is something to be said for the fragile innocence of a treble in the solo passage at the end of Bairstow’s Blessed City or the verse of Stainer’s I saw the Lord; but this aside, The Sixteen provide such precision in their attention to detail in dynamics, diction, attack and, most of all, intonation. This is particularly telling in the challenging chromaticism of Harris’s Faire is the heaven (I wish they had also recorded its double-choir counterpart Bring us, O Lord) and the clarity of part-writing in Parry’s I was glad, Stanford’s Beati quorum via and Wood’s Hail, gladdening light. Moreover, the collective “adult” response to the music makes for some wonderfully shaped and graded phrasing in Balfour Gardiner’s Evening Hymn, the deeply melancholy hues of Bainton’s And I saw a new heaven (especially the last section) and Howell’s languid Like as the hart.

For me, however, the most luminous singing is reserved for Parry’s My soul, there is a country where, owing to the careful shading of dynamics, the meaning of Vaughan’s poem is conveyed with a new and revelatory insight. Jeremy Dibble