Gabriel Crouch

White’s Lamentations are not as famous as Tallis’s, but their plangent harmonies and clashing lines have an equal intensity. This impressive debut disc by Gallicantus (an all-male group from the Tenebrae choir) includes White’s motets and hymns, emphasising his response to the texts and his eloquent way with the single Hebrew letters that begin each Lamentation. The vocal balance is slightly bass-heavy, but the sound is beautifully recorded.

William Byrd, favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, was a confirmed and practising Catholic who worshipped in defiance of the Queen. His status and perhaps even his life was preserved thanks partly to the undeniable mastery of his music, and to the fact that he was careful to maintain an output of music appropriate for a Protestant Rite (simple and English) as well as a Catholic one (florid and Latin).

Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered, with a libretto by poet/writer Nathaniel Bellows, is a celebration of, and an elegy for, the natural world—animals, plants, insects, the planet itself—an appeal for greater awareness, urgency, and action. Originally commissioned by Trinity Church Wall Street, this recording features the English vocal ensemble Gallicantus conducted by Gabriel Crouch.

Literally meaning ‘rooster song’ or ‘cock crow’, Gallicantus takes its name from monastic antiquity; the name of the office held just before dawn, it was a ceremony which evoked the renewal of life offered by the coming day. Dedicated to renaissance music and directed by Gabriel Crouch, the membership of this early music group boasts a wealth of experience in consort singing.

Francisco Guerrero is still insufciently well known by comparison to his great contemporary and compatriot Victoria. El León de Oro here afrms his rightful place in the history of the Golden Age of Spanish polyphony.

For sci-fi lovers the world over, Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is sacred text, so it comes as no surprise that its arrival on celluloid has been met with considerably furrowed brows, especially in the wake of its author's death – Adams suffered a fatal heart attack in 2001 in the midst of writing the screenplay. However, if the film's gloriously skewed and occasionally beautiful soundtrack is any indication, the Guide is in good hands. Director Garth Jennings tapped the considerable talents of award-winning U.K. composer/arranger and Divine Comedy member Jobi Talbot to swing the baton, and his reverence for the source material is evident from the very first note. Using Stephen Fry's wry summary of marine life's misunderstood intelligence to set the stage, Talbot unleashes – along with a chorus that includes a bawdy choir, a little girl, and an opera singer – "So Long & Thanks for All the Fish," a rousing, Broadway-style farewell to the planet (and its befuddled citizens) that's equal parts Rocky Horror and Monty Python. Mischief and Creativity are the muses here, as Talbot makes the "Destruction of Earth" sound both terrifying and irreverent – it launches into the banjo-led "Journey of the Sorcerer" that sounds like an updated version of "Classical Gas" – before introducing "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in a swirl of electronic melodiousness.

Five centuries, seven languages, and six singers with 35 years of remarkable experience inform this rare collection of choral music. In the world-renowned King's Singers resplendent voices, ancient and modern choral music comes to life with all the blazing immediacy and timeliness of the gospel of the nativity. With 25 pieces of music–ranging from familiar works such as "Coventry Carol" to the obscure Tchaikovsky piece "The Crown of Roses"–the King's Singers move through this hallowed and festive set with the vocal mastery that only three-and-a-half decades of accomplished work together is capable of creating. A number of contemporary carols written in the last century by composers such as John McCabe, Philip Lawson, John Rutter, and others are balanced by pieces by Bach and a host of traditional works. Lawson's "You Are the New Day," performed with a string quartet, stands out as one of the more notable performances. Like most of their music throughout Christmas, it reminds listeners that the art of music often interprets divine aspects gladly realized here on Earth.

In 1601, English composer Thomas Morley published a volume of madrigals called The Triumphs of Oriana. The music was intended to honor the aging Queen Elizabeth I, referred to as Oriana for reasons about which historians disagree (one version of the story is given in the detailed and informative notes by Thomas Elias). Each madrigal concluded with some variant of the couplet "Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana/Long live fair Oriana," allowing the composer (there were 23 different ones for the 25 pieces) to strut his polyphonic stuff at the end of the song.