£13.99
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10/10 - 'Electrifying as anything you've ever heard'

You hear about huge advance orders for the latest CD by the biggest, hottest pop superstar, or for the most fashionably hip tell-all book - but when the buzz is about a CD of classical choral music? Yes, there have been big successes by vocal groups during the last decade or two - Anonymous 4, the King’s Singers, the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, the Tallis Scholars, the Bulgarian women’s choirs, and don’t forget those Spanish monks - and by choral composers, including the abundantly popular John Rutter, the eminently revered Arvo Pärt, and the currently faddish and always challenging texturalist Morten Lauridsen. Even the sparsely talented John Tavener managed to make a mark, and his contined output of pretentious and opportunistic creations shows just how wide and open-armed the choral music world can be.

And then there’s Eric Whitacre, a 35-year-old American composer who in a few short years has carved more than just a niche: his music has captured the hearts and minds of singers, conductors, and vocal music fans across oceans and continents. According to his press materials, his piece Water Night “has become one of the most popular choral works of the last decade...one of the top selling choral publications in the last five years”, and his published works “have sold more than 350,000 copies worldwide.” On hearing the 14 selections on this CD - and after a memorable encounter with his new work A Boy and a Girl (premiered on this disc) at a national choral convention last year - I can only say that the acclaim and attention is well deserved.

And he’s fortunate to have such committed, adventurous, world-class musical advocates as Stephen Layton and Polyphony - not to mention the folks at Hyperion - to present his music so convincingly. Simon Eadon’s engineering, from London’s Temple Church, is top-notch, and Meurig Bowen’s very readable, informative notes complete a package that ranks as one of the truly worthwhile recording events of 2006.

Last year Stephen Layton and Polyphony gave us a very fine CD devoted to the music of the American composer, Morten Lauridsen (b.1943)

Now they follow that up with a programme of music by another, younger American composer, Eric Whitacre. Simply as a point of reference I’d say that anyone who responds positively to Lauridsen’s music should warm equally to Whitacre’s muse. I first encountered his work last year when I reviewed a CD of Christmas music that included ‘Lux aurumque’, with which this present CD concludes, I was impressed and intrigued by the piece so I was keen to explore Whitacre’s music further with Polyphony’s help.

Eric Whitacre was born in Reno, Nevada. In the very good liner notes accompanying this disc Meurig Bowen reveals that the young Whitacre had "a musical upbringing that matched the lack of focus and patchiness of most of his contemporaries". Despite that he was admitted to study music at the University of Las Vegas, whence he proceeded to the Juilliard School of Music in 1995 to study with John Corigliano and David Diamond.

There is some very beautiful music on this CD. The harmonies are often rich and close and to my ears Whitacre has a real feeling for how to write for the human voice. I doubt his music is easy to sing but he makes no outlandish demands on his singers and the music unfailingly falls gratefully on the ear and complements very well his chosen texts...

The singing of Polyphony under Stephen Layton’s discerning direction is superb throughout. The recorded sound is first rate. The choir is recorded clearly and with just the right amount of space around the voices. The excellent notes are provided in English, French and German and the full texts are supplied.

This is a very fine disc indeed. I’ve enjoyed it greatly and now that I’ve had the chance to sample more of Eric Whitacre’s music I believe that he’s a highly significant composer with a very genuine gift for choral writing and one, moreover, with that priceless ability to communicate strongly and effectively with his audience. I hope that this disc will be widely heard; it deserves to be. I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending it.

Robert Hollingworth: Right, stop making the coffee, leave the washing for two minutes, muzzle your children, pull over to the side of the road, and listen to this:

[extract from i thank You God for this amazing day]

This is the music of Eric Whitacre, and if you haven't heard about him, you're surely about to in a big way. And there can be no better place to start than a new recording entitled Cloudburst dedicated entirely to his choral works, sung by Polyphony, conducted by Stephen Layton. Whitacre was born in 1970 north of San Francisco. His musical education was patchy, he played in a marching band, synth in a techno pop band, and then got tricked into joining the choir, quote "there were a lot of cute girls in the soprano section" unquote, which changed his life. And why not.

There's nothing technically new about Whitacre's writing, there's more than a sniff of the new world of Aaron Copland about him, and you can hear the consecutive chording of a man writing basic stuff at the piano. But what hits you straight between the eyes is the honesty, optimism and sheer belief that passes any pretension. This is music that can actually make you smile, if you open yourself up to it.  That doesn't stop him exploring darker moods. Here's the opening of When David heard (that Absalom was slain) - the terrible lament of a man for his dead child.

[extract]

And that's only the beginning. Over the next 10 minutes, Whitacre presents various grief-inspired motifs, strongly reminiscent of Arvo Pärt, which he then combines to an incredible climax. And this is perhaps Whitacre's achievement. His superlative pacing, to which you can add a love of and commitment to words and an understanding of consonants, the whole infused by that incredible belief in his idea, without any angst over whether someone somewhere else might have used the style before.

That's the music, but it's just notes on the page without a matching performance, and this it utterly receives from Polyphony and conductor Stephen Layton. You might make the mistake of thinking that the music was somehow simple to perform, but its requirements are considerable. Note clusters don't just sing themselves, they require fine tuning, and the voices have to sing without vibrato for much of the time in exposed parts of their range. Layton's pacing is also excellent.

The previous four choirs reviewed today [Swedish Radio Choir, Accentus, Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and Choir of All Saints, Margaret Street] are bodies that sing together regularly, with a regular line-up, the two European ones generously funded. Like many British vocal ensembles, Polyphony's membership is fluid. And what's more, this whole project was put together from scratch - that's rehearsal and recording - in three days. Unimaginable anywhere outside this island, though fairly standard over here. Layton has assembled a wonderful mix of London's very finest and, more to the point, most suitable singers for this music, fronted by Elin Manahan Thomas, Julia Doyle, and Grace Davidson, among others on soprano. Credit also to producer Adrian Peacock, who's done a great job.

If I wanted to find a gripe with Layton's approach, it would be to ask whether enough tension and yearning had been wrung from the vast choral spaces that Whitacre creates. The music could take even more, and I'm going to search the net to see what American choirs have done to it. But I should stress this is a staggering disc, and a hugely attractive one that you will want to play to your friends. As a final amuse bouche, enjoy the end of the poem Sleep, and then go and buy yourself the disc.

[extract]