Locus Iste

Britten: A Hymn to the Virgin; Jubilate Deo in C; Parry: Blest Pair of Sirens; plus works by Bruckner, Poulenc, Rachmaninov; Rorem, Stanford, Tavener etc

Laura van der Heijden (cello); Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge/andrew Nethsingha; Glen Dempsey (organ) Signum Classics SIGCD567 73:51 mins Composed for the consecration of Linz Cathedral’s Votive Chapel

150 years ago, Bruckner’s

Locus iste appropriately headlines a disc commemorating another ecclesiastical dedication of that year: the new chapel of St John’s College, Cambridge. And Andrew Nethsingha adroitly programmes one work from each of the succeeding decades in what turns out to be a double celebration since the disc also marks the choir’s 100th release. Mind you, with so much introspective music dispersed among the 15 tracks, celebratory fervour is perhaps somewhat muted.

True, Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens brings up the rear with all due pomp and circumstance (though it seems to run out of steam towards the end), and Britten’s Jubilate in C together with the ear-catching textures of Jonathan Dove’s Seek him that maketh the seven stars oxygenate admirably; but the overarching tone is set by the opening work as William Harris’s Faire is the Heaven draws a sonorous curtain of richest velvet. Tempos sometimes err on the cautious side. Finzi’s God is gone up proves distinctly deliberate, and the teenage Britten’s miraculously poised Hymn to the Virgin drags its feet. Still, the Rachmaninov Cherubic Hymn segues beautifully out of Giles Swayne’s sombre, enigmatic setting of Adam lay ibounden. A glint of sunlight, inspired and inspiring.

Paul Riley

PERFORMANCE ★★★★

RECORDING ★★★★