This disc, featuring a variety of sacred works by 20th-century composers and arrangers, fully measures up to this revered choir's reputation for first-rate singing and for being what can only be described as America's finest English cathedral choir. Everything from the bright, prominent treble tone to the enunciation and inflection--even the choir's vestments--comes from the long-established Anglican tradition, and under the careful tutelage of director Gerre Hancock these choristers have nothing to apologize for, either in technique or in musicianly command of the repertoire. The repertoire includes several traditional favorites--Stanford's Latin motets, for example--along with works closely associated with Saint Thomas, including choir-member Anthony Piccolo's beautiful anthem Heaven and Heart, T. Tertius Noble's Go to Dark Gethsemane, and Hancock's own arrangement of the Spiritual Deep River. Along the way we encounter the intensely overwrought and way-too-long Magnificat by Alan Gray and the tedious-and-fussy Vox dicentis by Edward Naylor. Stanford's gorgeous but extremely tricky motets provide many moments of listening pleasure but also reveal their challenges as the choir trebles struggle with intonational control in several places, especially in the somewhat cumbersome and awkwardly written eight-part Coelos ascendit hodie (no choir sings this piece well) and in the opening and closing bars of Beati quorum via. |
