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Now where exactly would you place this? […] Westminster Cathedral? Broadway? Estonia even? In fact it’s the shamelessly ecstatic writing of the American composer Morten Lauridsen raising alleluias at the end of his Lux aeterna. This extended work for chorus and orchestra was premièred in 1997 by the Los Angeles Master Chorale for whom it was written. And it’s performed here by Stephen Layton’s Polyphony and the Britten Sinfonia. 

Lauridsen has spent his life immersing himself in plain chant and renaissance polyphony and out of it he’s forged his own contrapuntally rigorous yet lusciously lyrical style. Lauridsen’s sensuous fusion of old world structures and new world spirit also characterises three motets written at the same time as Lux aeterna and accompanying it on this disc. And there’s something else besides. Twinned with the sacred works are six madrigals Lauridsen wrote in 1987. He calls them ‘Fire Songs’ because they’re linked by the single primal sonority of what he calls a ‘fire-chord’ symbolising their fevered mood. Think Monteverdi and Petrarch’s freezing fires, think Gesualdo and his voluptuous dissonances, and there you have it. Six madrigals for our time sung with all the rigorous sense and ardent sensibility you’d expect from Layton ’s choir. […]

The flickering flames and burning desire of Amor, io sento l’alma. Stephen Layton conducting Polyphony in the wonderful acoustic of London ’s Temple Church .

Morten Lauridsen (born 1943) has been described as the American John Rutter. In support of this, he is claimed to be one of America 's most-performed composers of choral music, though this is one of only a handful of recordings of his work to originate outside the US . His approachable, tonally based style comes across as a mixture of Anglican religiosity, American open-plain spaciousness and West Coast New-Ageism.

The main work here is a non-liturgical requiem, Lux aeterna, with texts drawn from various Latin sources, while Madrigali, subtitled Six 'Fire Songs' on Italian Renaissance Poems, harks back to the music of Monteverdi and Gesualdo for its inspiration. The music has freshness and an affecting emotional pull to it that explains its popularity with singers and audiences across the pond. Stephen Layton's Polyphony, whose recent recordings of Pärt, Tavener and others have been revelations of choral singing, brings a comparable firmness, tonal opulence and refinement to this new repertoire, which will undoubtedly gain new admirers as a result.

This new disc from the multi-award-winning choir Polyphony is something rather special. At once genuinely original and yet reassuringly accessible, the music of Morten Lauridsen has achieved something of a cult status in his native America . Stephen Layton draws from his musicians some of the most ardently lyrical performances of recent years. Lux aeterna was greeted by The Times after its London premiere thus: "a classic of new American choral writing ...in this light-filled continuum of sacred texts, old world structures and new world spirit intertwine in a cunningly written score, at once sensuous and spare".

Were a comparison to be sought, it would perhaps with with Fauré's Requiem, but this new work must surely be allowed to stand as unique. The Madrigali, subtitled 'Six Fire Songs on Italian Renaissance Poems', are phenomenally challenging unaccompanied choral works, very much in the tradition of Monteverdi and Gesualdo. Yet the technical difficulties they present to the performer are disguised from the listener by a seamless sense of purpose which unites the cycle into a whole of stunning effect.

"Lux aeterna" illuminates hope with choral music

In the course of my work, I receive compact discs by the dozen each week, more than I can listen to, let alone review. I try to give as many of them as I can a hearing; once in a while, I'll listen to something particularly well done a second or even a third time. But recently, quite by chance, I found a recording that I can barely put down: "Lux aeterna," a crystalline recording of choral works by the American composer Morten Lauridsen (b. 1945).

As luck (or something) would have it, I picked it up from the "to listen to" stack shortly after learning that a friend and former colleague in Chicago, tenor Richard "Bud" Markley, had been found murdered in his apartment. This music spoke to me clearly in an hour of need, but now that the shock has worn off, I keep returning to it again and again.

Like Faure's Requiem or Brahms' "A German Requiem," this is music that speaks warmly to the grieving, taking the mourner from the shadows of sorrow into a realization of eternal light. For those of us who need great music to live and feel more fully, these works speak clearly to the soul and illuminate our greater hope.

"Lux aeterna" (1997), in five movements ("Introitus," "In te, Domine, speravi," "O nata lux," "Veni, Sancte Spiritus" and the stunning "Agnus Dei - Lux aeterna" as a conclusion) for chorus and orchestra, takes familiar phrases from the Requiem Mass and combines them with lines from psalms and Latin hymns. It begins with a bare Goreckian rumble and builds through minor-key severity into glorious, radiant openness, with alleluias that seem to split the heavens with their rapturous joy.

The disc also has, in a very different vein, " Madrigali: Six 'Fire Songs' on Italian Renaissance Poems," and then reverts to the sacred with gorgeous settings of "Ave Maria" (this one ought to give Franz Biber's setting a run for its money), "Ubi caritas et amor" (built on the familiar plainchant) and a luminescent setting of "O magnum mysterium." Lauridsen's idiom uses everything from chant forms to Renaissance-style polyphony and hints of John Taverner, all combined with his own unique compositional voice. This is some of the most grateful writing for the human voice - and some of the most deeply spiritual composition - that I have heard from a contemporary composer.

It all receives a flawless, perfectly balanced performance from the British choral group Polyphony, directed by the gifted Stephen Layton, and ably assisted by the Britten Sinfonia. If you love choral music, if you appreciate compositions that lift you from the mundane, you should not miss "Lux aeterna."

Sarah Bryan Miller

One of today's most performed choral composers, Northwest native Morten Lauridsen has won legions of international fans for the otherworldly beauty of his music. This new Hyperion CD has paired that music with superb interpreters: conductor Stephen Layton and his chorus Polyphony, plus the Britten Sinfonia (Pauline Lowbury, leader). The 1997 "Lux Aeterna," a luminous five-movement choral/orchestral requiem composed to texts about light, is joined here by the six "Madrigali" — virtuoso a cappella choral pieces — and three shorter works for chorus, including the hugely popular "O Magnum Mysterium." Layton 's Polyphony is just the chorus to do this music justice, with clear, unfussy, adroit readings that rise to the rapturous.

Despite the wide geographical separation between the music's point of origin and that of the performers — Morten Lauridsen is based in southern California, while Polyphony and its conductor Stephen Layton are as English as they come, with a profound knowledge of the acoustic qualities of London's churches — this disc represents an ideal match of music to performing forces. Polyphony has specialized in the accessible sort of contemporary choral music, with a warm sound attuned to the ethos of reassurance yet a deliberate precision that builds up long lines and inflects them strongly when necessary. They give definitive performances of a pair of ambitious and sharply contrasting pieces by Lauridsen, both of which have been well recorded in the past but which have never been so nicely addressed to one another.

“Lux Aeterna” (1997) is a work made up of five different liturgical texts, beginning with the Introit from the requiem mass (“Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis”) and ending with the Agnus Dei from the Mass Ordinary. It is filled with the trademark sounds of this composer, who uses too much dissonance to be brought under the minimalist umbrella but who creates full, lush textures using a relatively restricted (or at least slowly evolving) palette of harmonies and thus makes music with a contemporary kind of calming resonance. “Lux Aeterna,” for chorus and orchestra, brings the Britten Sinfonia on board; Layton balances all his forces precisely in the splendid environment of St.-Jude-on-the-Hill in London 's Hampstead Garden Suburb. The work is complemented by the inclusion of three shorter a cappella Lauridsen pieces in the same vein.

In sharp contrast stand the composer's “Madrigali: Six ‘Fire Songs’ on Italian Renaissance Poems” of 1987. Here Lauridsen attempts with some success to forge a modern language extended from the madrigals of Gesualdo and Monteverdi . Sharp dissonances are developed out of a single core sonority and build to a moment of supreme tension in the fourth piece, “Io piango” (I weep). In this work, too, Polyphony (now performing in London 's Temple Church ) remains firmly in control.

Lauridsen has admirers on both sides of the Atlantic . They, and indeed any general lover of choral music, will enjoy this disc. If you sing in a choir, check this recording out to learn just how good choral singing can get. Hyperion's engineers, working on what might be termed their home turf, have delivered this event in full fidelity.

The choral work of Polyphony, under the direction of Stephen Layton, is solid and inspiring throughout the CD, but it is in the a capella performances where their true musicianship, impeccable intonation and sense of ensemble is most appreciated and at its best. They truly sing with one heart. The choral sound, for the most part, is warm and rich. At times however, the straight tones of the sopranos are rather piercing. One may reason that this as one of the drawbacks of hearing these works recorded as opposed to a live performance. The texture, sound and harmonic sensibilities of Lauridsen are at their best in a live performance. This music demands an acoustical space that is a performing partner, as with the choral tradition of Venice , where overtones spin their own galaxy of harmonies. Polyphony, Stephen Layton, Britten Sinfonia and Pauline Lowbury recorded this CD in 2003, along with the composer at the Temple Church in London . The only thing that is better than this recording is a live performance.