Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

This is the third collection in the excellent series of settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge under Andrew Nethsingha. We have nine settings of the Evening Canticles, recorded in early 2022 whilst Nethsingha was Director of Music at St John's, a post he held for 15 years before his appointment as Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey in 2023. The music chosen concentrates on the turbulent years following World War II, taking us from George Dyson's setting composed at the close of the war to Bryan Kelly's canticles written at the height of the Swinging Sixties. 'Magnificat 3' also explores three generations of composer-pupil relationships in settings by Charles Villiers Stanford, Herbert Howells and Bryan Kelly. Stanford's "Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in B flat" was described by his self-proclaimed "son in music", Herbert Howells, as an "astonishing work". Howells' impression of Kelly's "Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in C" was more ambiguous saying, perhaps with tongue in cheek: "I will tell you one thing about your setting. After each performance, the church will have to be re-consecrated!" Two of Howells' works feature on the album. The inclusion of his "Westminster Service" is appropriate in light of Nethsingha's recent appointment as Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey and his "St Paul's Service" is illuminated by an interesting analysis by former Director of the Royal School of Church Music, Andrew Reid, included in the album booklet. Other pieces featured are Pavel Chesnokov's "Nunc Dimittis", Philip Moore's setting commissioned especially for the choir in 2006, the year before Andrew Nethsingha began his 15-year tenure, George Dyson's "Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in F" and Kenneth Leighton's "Collegium Magdalenae Oxoniense". The album includes illuminating booklet notes by Andrew Nethsingha exploring each work in detail, the analysis of Howells' "St Paul's Service" previously mentioned, and an introduction by Lucy Winkett, illustrated by scans of original manuscripts of the works. There is much to appreciate in this fine collection. All the singing is of the standard we have come to expect from St John's, well augmented by George Herbert on the chapel organ. The audio quality is also outstanding and the only caveat has to be that if you have any sort of collection of English choral music from this period you may find some duplication. However, the versions here are so well done that we should not mind. Over his time at Cambridge Andrew Nethsingha has done nothing but enhance the Choir of St John's and his successor has some big shoes to fill.

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