Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

Although the singing on this interesting CD is good throughout and features a treble solo on Benjamin Britten's "Hymn To Saint Peter" by Ella Taylor, BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister Of The Year 2010, I suspect that it is the content that will be of most interest to listeners. The theme of this CD is music in honour of Saint Peter, one of the patrons of the Cathedral Church Of St Peter and St Paul at Sheffield. We open with the title piece "Tu Es Petrus" ("Thou Art Peter") by Charles Marie Widor and then move into the first of three brief settings of the Mass with Maurice Durufle's "Messe 'Cum Jubilo'". Next we have another version of "Tu Es Petrus", this one by Durufle, followed by a rare outing of Jonathan Dove's "Missa Brevis". This is followed by Britten's aforementioned "Hymn To St Peter" and the final Mass, a "Grande Messe Solennelle" by Thierry Escaich which is the first recording of this setting by a British choir although I predict it will not be the last as this is an excellent and rewarding piece to which to listen and, I should think, to sing. We close with another unusual piece, "St Peter & St Paul" by Carl Rutti. There are plenty of churches dedicated to St Peter and I imagine there will be some choir directors who will appreciate using this disc to widen their repertoires. However, this collection deserves a much wider audience. Any listeners who enjoy either traditional or contemporary choral music will get some pleasant surprises as they explore the contents of this disc and, as we said at the outset, there is some noteworthy singing by the choir accompanied by some fine work on the organ by Anthony Gowing.

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