Annunciations

'Annunciations' celebrates Sir James MacMillan's ongoing contributions to sacred music, performed by St Salvator's Chapel Choir. Alongside five of his own pieces, the album includes works by two decisive influences on MacMillan, Benjamin Britten and Kenneth Leighton; two significant contemporaries, John Tavener and Judith Bingham; and six next generation composers mentored by Sir James on the TheoArtistry Composers' Scheme, a collaboration between ITIA (the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts), the Music Centre, and St Salvator's Chapel Choir, in the University of St Andrews.

This four-disc Ondine set collects the complete concertos of Einojuhani Rautavaara. While these 12 works may not make the best argument for the Finnish post-modernist's status as a great composer – his eight symphonies surely make good that claim – they certainly make the best argument for his status as an amazingly effective, astoundingly diverse, and wonderfully individualistic composer. The works themselves are all from Rautavaara's wide-ranging maturity.