Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

"Matchless Maidens" indeed? This is asking your grumpy old reviewer to reach for his thesaurus of snarky comments and let fly but, to be fair, the epithet comes from no less a source than BBC Radio Three and, to be honest, the choir deserves it. Not every song is perfectly performed but there are more than enough highlights over the 70 minutes to keep us listening. These include Franck's "Panis Angelicus" with a beautiful cello accompaniment from Michael Mace, the "Agnus Dei" from Mozart's 'Krönungs Messe', and Handel's "Let The Bright Seraphim" with Gavin Wells on trumpet. Special mention must be made to Britten's "Missa Brevis" which says more in its 10 minutes than some much longer settings. Pieces that did not work for me were Byrd's "An Earthly Tree" that came across as muddled and "The Three Kings" by Peter Cornelius that sounded out of place in this collection although it is sung very well indeed. A thumbs up should go to producer Roland Robertson and engineer Gary Cole who have given us an excellent recording and the booklet notes by the choir's director, Peter King, are also good. Cross Rhythms does not have a square rating for "matchless" so we'll go with "very good indeed".

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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