Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

Note to self: do not judge CDs by their artwork. This one looks scarily austere, leading me to expect something cerebrally minimalistic and yet what we hear is, I suppose, the modernism of its day. The focus of this collection is the choral music of Herbert Howells but using him as a fulcrum so we get pieces by composers who influenced him as well as works that have been influenced by Howells and thus by those that influenced him which reminds us that history, including musical history, is a flowing stream and not a collection of separate boxes. Looking back we hear Ralph Vaughan Williams' "The Souls Of The Righteous" and Charles Villiers Stanford's "Lighten Our Darkness". We meet Patrick Handley, a contemporary and sometime co-worker with Howells, who gives us "My Beloved Spake" and then we hear from our own contemporaries, John Scott, Nico Muhly, and David Bednall. These names will be well known to those who listen to contemporary choral music and if you are yet to make their acquaintance this is a fine introduction. Howells himself provides seven of the 15 pieces on this disc so if he is new to you this is a good place to start and if he is one of your favourites I am confident that the contemporary reflections on his work will be of interest. To take just one example, the composition that is probably furthest from Howells' sound-world is Muhly's "Like As The Hart" (helpfully sequenced to follow Howells' setting). Yet Muhly's version, while being very different, is in some almost indefinable way, still from the same hymnbook. I appreciate that this is a rather feeble attempt at a review but I hope it encourages you to investigate for yourself. The singing by the Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford under director Owen Rees is outstanding and the repertoire must be of interest to all who enjoy Anglican choral music. The journey takes us across a turbulent century from two of Howells' compositions written during the Great War of 1914-1918, "Regina Caeli" and "Salve Regina", through to a special commission by David Bednall, "Ave Regina Caelorum" intended to complement the two Howells items and written in 2016. All are very much worth hearing.

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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