COMPOSERS: Rutter
LABELS: UCJ
ALBUM TITLE: Rutter - The Gift of Music
WORKS: The Gift of Music; Hymn to the Creator of Light; Lord, make me an instrument of they peace; Feel the Spirit; Deep River; Of a Rose, a lovely Rose; Look at the world
PERFORMER: The Cambridge Singers/John Rutter
CATALOGUE NO: 476 3068
This 60th-birthday tribute brings
together a selection of John Rutter’s
short anthems and folksong
arrangements, plus a couple of
extracts from his Requiem. Listening
to it at one go, the effect is samey.
There’s little range, and no depth.
It all sounds very much as Radio 2
used to.
But his works attract performers
and audiences (or congregations)
worldwide, and have their points.
Impeccably crafted, they’re
invariably neatly and effectively
composed, and not too difficult
for amateur choirs. Religious light
music, or easy listening for God,
may be a fairly lowly concept, but
Rutter’s pieces are never cheap,
tacky or vulgar. It’s only when
you compare, say, his arrangement
of ‘Deep River’ with Tippett’s
in A Child of Our Time that it
sounds squishy.
These performances given
under the composer’s baton by a
choir he founded are faultless and
presumably definitive. The sound is
warm and lucid. George Hall