David Hill: St John's College Choir Cambridge - Bairstow: Choral Music

Another great disc from the dazzling Choir of St John�s College Cambridge under their Director of Music David Hill, collaborating with great musicians including Roderick Williams, Paul Provost and the Britten Sinfonia.The music of Edward Bairstow (1874�1946) is an essential part of the British cathedral music tradition. He set his texts �with a beauty which makes one never able to think of the words without recalling the music�, as the Dean of York wrote on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Certainly the more well-known works on this disc eminently fulfill this criterion. St John�s� inspired recordings of these classic numbers in the matchless acoustic of the chapel make this a disc to treasure on these grounds alone. However it also includes some glorious rarities from different points in Bairstow�s career, which demonstrate his mastery of different styles and developing harmonic language. The Five Poems of the Spirit are a particular highlight: beautiful and unusual settings of metaphysical poetry for solo baritone, choir and orchestra, performed with passionate commitment by the wonderful Roderick Williams.