Catalogue Connection: 21148

An enjoyable…collection. The abundant riches of choral music by living British composers are mined for the latest album for The Purcell Singers….fine singing from the enfolding warmth of Paul Mealor’s A Spotless Rose and Will Todd’s My Lord has Come through to John Rutter’s playfully swaying setting of ‘Sign no more, ladies’…Kerry Andrew’s All things are quite silent is especially striking…The Main pity, though, [is it] is over too soon

A Spotless Rose is rather a curious mixture of choral settings from The Purcell Singers. It’s a half sacred, half secular combination of settings from a range of contemporary British composers. The sacred section is focussed on the Virgin Mary or on events where she is a major part of the story. The secular section includes a folk song arrangement and three settings of Shakespeare.

At all times, this is a highly disciplined set of performances. The choir is perfectly balanced and there’s a warmth to their performance which shines through.

Some of the texts are highly familiar. Paul Mealor’s setting of A Spotless Rose, for example, has been set by several others, so there is always the expectation that there needs to be something new to surprise the listener. Mealor does that by pushing the basses to resounding depths and, conversely, sending the sopranos to considerable heights. The piece, taken from the composer’s madrigal cycle Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal, pushes the voices to their vocal limits yet they never lose poise. The dense harmonies used could have sounded muddy but, here, they have an uncanny clarity.

Will Todd‘s setting of his own poem My Lord has come is an exercise in tranquil contemplation until the choir lets rip he sets ‘His love will hold me’. Again, this is an exercise in precision, something which is shown copiously in this recording.

There are two exhortations to Mary – Ave Maria by Sarah Cattley and James MacMillan‘s Ave Maris Stella. Cattley’s eight-part setting often hears the choir working antiphonally and the extreme tenderness here is slightly disrupted by some welcome harmonic diversions in the second part of the piece.

The MacMillan, as so often with this composer, is an exercise in simplicity while the harmonic fascination is never lost. It is a tranquil piece but with a brilliantly dramatic Amen.

There’s a skilful setting of Dorothy Sayers’ poem The Three Kingsby Jonathan Dove. This 2000 commission from King’s College, Cambridge, has entered the regular repertoire of many choirs. The words track the journey of the Magi, with each character treated, musically, in a different way. There’s quiet reverence in the first verse, rather less respect in the second and the third, describing the old king who carried gold suddenly erupting into an energetic episode.

Kerry Andrew’s setting of the folk song All things are quite silent is skilful. The sound of the sea is a constant backdrop and the choir must make the sound of wind blowing across the waves. It is a tragic tale and the choir does its theatrical best to make this tragic tale work. It is brilliantly evocative and tightly controlled.

The final three pieces on the disc were dedicated by the composer to the choir to mark their long mutual relationship. John Rutter’s Three Shakespeare Songs are hugely entertaining, sometimes mysterious and melancholy, at other times energetic.

Conductors Jonathan Schranz and Mark Ford can be proud of what they have achieved here. It’s an intriguing programme from a disciplined choral group whose dedication to diction, pitch and general musicality is razor sharp.