Peace I Leave With You

In their first recording for CORO The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, with director Mark Williams, explore the repertoire that has provided the bedrock of the college’s musical life for the last 500 years, all of which was written for the end of the day. Much music associated with evening time is naturally calm and soothing, and would satisfy those seeking transcendental beauty in the form of unchallenging ‘sound baths’, but this collection also seeks to challenge, contrasting contemporary settings with music from the 16th century. We hope, through this range of works, to capture something of that liminal space between day and night that is characterised by Evensong, and to lead the listener into that ‘peace that passes all understanding’. The album showcases works by composers from John Sheppard to Joanna Marsh, and features much-loved pieces such as Hubert Parry’s Lord, let me know mine end and John Tavener’s The Lord’s Prayer as well as new additions to the Evensong repertory such as Grayston Ives’ In pace and Piers Connor Kennedy’s O nata lux.

German men's vocal sextet Die Singphoniker was established in the early '80s and has made it its mission to take on a promiscuous variety of music, including plainsong, the repertoires of music for men's voices of the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern eras, as well as folk song and American popular song. In this album the group brings its commitment to diversity to new level. Taking Pierre de la Rue's Requiem, Missa pro fidelibus defunctis (ca. 1506) as its central work, the group intersperses its seven movements with a wild variety of other pieces, including the spiritual Deep River; a movement from Weill's Berliner Requiem; German folk songs; contemporary pieces by Einojuhani Rautavaara, Knut Nystedt, and Hans Schanderl; and arrangements of songs by Sting and Eric Clapton.