Henry Mancine Music Score

Martin Neary and Westminster Abbey Choir, aided and abetted by the New London Consort, marked the tercentenary of Purcell’s death with this recording, a majestic album of the composer’s music for Queen Mary in life and in death. The Funeral Music opens here with Wood’s transcription of the ‘Old English March’ in procession through Westminster Abbey’s reverberant interior, then in company with the windband marches of Tollet and Paisible and Purcell’s Funeral March. For sense of place, history, and grandeur, nothing beats Neary’s recording. His choir are on peak form in Morley’s Funeral Sentences but hindered by indistinct recorded sound.

In the repertoire on this new disc… Cleobury, King's College, and the AAM prove currently unbeatable. King's College Chapel provides a glorious acoustic, splendidly recorded, bathing the music in resonance but retaining every detail.

The orchestral music of the 60s was portentously represented by the great composer, arranger and conductor Henry Mancini. In a years when it was common to attend the launch of discs with original or inspired Hawaiian music could not miss the contribution of Mancini to these repertoires. In 1966 he released this album that was later reissued as a CD in 2002, with a selection of songs among which were several of the usual with Hawaiian ambience complemented with other compositions taken from movies.