Reviewed by John Irvine

Choral music written for unaccompanied voices (acapella) has traditionally been the medium of choice for composers striving to express the highest spiritual yearnings of humankind as worshiping creatures, and no more so than in Russia where the Orthodox Church has faithfully preserved the early Christian principle of exclusively vocal performance, an ideal which was enriched and augmented by Western European harmony and counterpoint, resulting in works of great musical beauty and expressive richness. Such music has often captured the imagination of the Western public, and certainly there is a great demand for spiritual music today. The idea for this album came out of the Holst Singers participating in a series of charity concerts. This disc repeats the musical selections of those concerts, providing on one disc the very best of the classical repertoire preserved as part of Church tradition: the musically respectable end of the spectrum of worship in the Russian Orthodox Church. In addition to works by Tchaikovsky and Gretchaninov - whose "Creed" with a solo performance by leading countertenor James Bowman simply has to be heard to be believed - there are works by Part and Gorecki. And yet the individual composers and pieces are almost second to the overall effect of the collection that I would rather play to you than talk about! Beautiful in the extreme.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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