On 10 April 2026, Divine Art presents A Spotless Rose, a thrilling collection of choral works by leading contemporary British composers including James MacMillan, Jonathan Dove, John Rutter, Kerry Andrew and more, from the award-winning vocal ensemble The Purcell Singers, conducted by Jonathan Schranz & Mark Ford.
This digital only album takes listeners through a journey of themes of arrival and the sea, with Christmas themed texts and poems, Marian hymns and folksong. A Spotless Rose culminates in the premiere recording of John Rutter’s Three Shakespeare Songs. The work is dedicated to the Purcell Singers and conductor Mark Ford, an acknowledgement of Rutter’s long and fruitful relationship with the ensemble, and issued to celebrate the composer’s recent 80th birthday, completing a rich and rewarding album.
The title track is Paul Mealor’s setting of the 14th century Christmas text A Spotless Rose, the emotional heart of his madrigal cycle ‘Now sleeps the crimson petal‘, a meditation on the mystery of the Incarnation, in which the metaphorical rose unfurls with gradually building textures and a staggering range of tessitura. Will Todd’s carol My Lord has Come, from his own poem, is a favourite amongst choirs and audiences alike. At the climax of the piece, ‘his love will hold me’ bursts out of the preceding tranquillity. Jonathan Dove’s The Three Kings is a true modern classic, with text by Dorothy L Sayers, telling the story of the magi.
In the eight-part Ave Maria by award-winning composer Sarah Cattley, upper and lower voices are frequently treated as two separate choirs, combining for added harmonic tension at key moments; Sir James MacMillan’s setting of the medieval Marian hymn Ave Maris Stella is in just four parts, harmonising a strikingly simple soprano melody in increasingly inventive ways. In a contemporary contrast Kerry Andrew’s atmospheric setting of the folksong All things are quite silent was originally written to perform using a loop station music device, gradually layering the sounds of the sea with fragments of a tune they found in an old book of English folksongs about a girl who loses her love to the sea.
Sir John Rutter’s Three Shakespeare Songs draw inspiration from settings by Finzi and Vaughan Williams. O mistress mine takes the form of a jazz waltz, Be not afeard uses expansive harmony and deep textures to create a mysterious aural landscape and Sigh no more, ladies brings the set to a cheerfully energetic conclusion.
One of London’s leading chamber choirs, The Purcell Singers, formed in 1994 by conductor Mark Ford, has performed extensively in the UK and internationally. The group has a wide repertoire, ranging from Gibbons to Tavener, via Bach, Howells, Poulenc, Barber and Britten, and has developed a particular reputation for championing unusual late romantic works, notably those of the German composer Georg Schumann. The Purcell Singers are also active in session work, and have recorded several discs for film and television.
