Secular Hymns

Playing together for the first time for Hyperion, Hough and Isserlis are stunningly matched in this large-scale passionate romantic programme. The sonatas stand at the centre of the meaty repertoire established by Brahms—whose two cello sonatas Steven Isserlis has recorded for us in an award-winning disc accompanied by Peter Evans (CDA66159)—and characterised by grand sweeping gestures, lush melody, and heartfelt emotions that sear from pathos to frenzy. The Franck is, of course, an alternative version the composer wished for his violin sonata, a transition that many feel to be the work's happiest incarnation.

Tallis lived during a time of tremendous religious upheaval. The succession from Henry VIII to Edward VI, Edward to Mary Tudor and Mary to Elizabeth meant changes from Catholic to Protestant, and back again with Mary, before Elizabeth’s “third way” – a more accepting and moderate form of Protestantism.

Renaissance music from Spain has come to mean the works of composers such as Tomás Luís de Victoria or Francisco Guerrero rather than their predecessors. But composers such as Francisco de Peñalosa – who died in 1528, the same year that Guerrero was born – were musicians of genuine imagination and skill, whose work often shows a formidable individuality. The most recent edition of Peñalosa’s oeuvre lists 22 works as genuine: masses, lamentations, hymns and motets. From these, New York Polyphony have selected two highly expressive Lamentations, intended for services held during Holy Week and setting biblical texts bemoaning the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Besides two brief motets, Peñalosa is also represented by sections from his Missa L’homme armé, one of the many examples from the 15th to the 17th century of cyclic masses based on secular melodies.

Trust In God (1984). Released in 1984, Trust in God finds Green distracted throughout. Around the same time of this, a brilliant documentary, The Gospel According to Al Green, was being worked on. The film's subtext of Green shunning yet still loving R&B worked its way into the studio, too. This is gospel all right, but often of the perfunctory, barely awake variant. As pure gospel was causing Green's mind to wander, he attempted to solve the problem by covering early-'70s pop songs. Joe South's "Don't It Make You Wanta Go Home" gets a great and involved vocal from Green. The best song, the Jean Terrell-era Supremes "Up the Ladder to the Roof," turns into a prime Al Green song, with its sly drums and all of Green's attention…