This choral feast (subtitled ‘Songs and Spirituals’) comes from John Rutter’s own Collegium label. Its Anglo­American thread pays homage to three of his favourite musical traditions – the spiritual‚ the madrigal and American song. The most substantial work here is the new half­hour­long cycle of spirituals Feel the Spirit‚ which received its première in Carnegie Hall in June this year. These luscious arrangements bear repeated listening: orchestrally colourful and playfully witty (is there a hint of Harpo Marx in ‘I got a robe’?). In their exuberant moments they lie somewhere between Porgy and Bess and George Mitchell’s brand of close­harmony minstrelsy. Melanie Marshall’s voice is engagingly honeyed‚ especially in the Vaughan Williams­flavoured ‘Sometimes I feel like a motherless child’. The Cambridge Singers and BBC Concert Orchestra are on top form throughout. Rutter’s Birthday Madrigals were completed in 1995 to celebrate George Shearing’s 75th birthday. Drawing on texts from the Elizabethan era‚ they feature the superb bass­playing of Malcoln Creese and some sympathetic pianistic embellishments from Wayne Marshall‚ and are juxtaposed by Shearing’s own beautiful Songs and Sonnets (1999)‚ a follow­up Shakespearean cycle to Music to Hear (1985). Interestingly both composers set the Bard’s It was a lover and his lass‚ though neither can surpass the television variety show setting by Shearing’s wartime colleague‚ Arthur Young. ‘Fie on sinful fantasy’ and the Delian ‘Spring’ work best here. The ‘fillers’ offer a triple bonus and include a full French impressionist treatment of Hoagy Carmichael’s exquisite Skylark. A delightful disc. Strongly recommended.