Croft No5

Let's not waste time: get this for soprano Lucy Crowe's voice, for her performance of "What passion cannot Music raise", for her "The soft complaining flute"–and don't forget the glorious "But oh! What art can teach". Okay–just get this for the magnificent Crowe, whose golden, ringing tone and impeccable, uninhibited technique sets Handel's arias ablaze in vibrant, scintillating glory, relegating any recorded competition to second-class status. (Listen to that long-held, stratospheric note in the final chorus, on the words "The trumpet shall be heard on high"–on high, indeed; it seems like Crowe could have sustained it forever!) To sing Handel requires technical ease and comfort, range and unreserved explicatory ability–and in this, and in her complete habitation of the world of Handelian style Lucy Crowe is unsurpassed.

In the latest release in Willowhayne Records' acclaimed Experience series, organist John Hosking is joined by soprano Olivia Hunt, violinist Xander Croft and harpist Bethan Griffiths in a varied programme from St Asaph Cathedral. With two world premiere recordings of the music of John Hosking, the recording also includes music by J. S. Bach, Léon Boellmann, Lili Boulanger (her beautiful Pie Jesu) and Sigfrid Karg-Elert's Symphonic Chorale 'Nun ruhen alle Wälder.' John Hosking is Director of Music at Holy Trinity, Southport, following fourteen years as Assistant Director of music at St. Asaph Cathedral. He is also one of the organists for the BBC’s Daily Service. A student at the Royal College of Music, John became Organ Scholar of Westminster Abbey in 1996 and is the only person to ever hold this post for a period of three years. During this time, John played the organ for many Royal and State occasions, broadcast for the BBC and played twenty solo recitals in the Abbey.

Originally released as part of a Purcell-Handel-Haydn ‘trilogy’, this recording of A Song for Saint Cecilia's Day directed by Marc Minkowski, a recognised specialist in the Handel repertoire, is now available separately for the first time. The outstanding soloists also contribute to making this disc a reference.