COMPOSERS: Radcliffe; Byrd; Chivers; Holst; Lauridsen; Palestrina; Poulenc; Tavener; Tchaikovsky; Vaughan; Warlock Williams; Whitacre; etc
LABELS: Signum Classics
ALBUM TITLE: A Choral Christmas
WORKS: A Choral Christmas
PERFORMER: The Rodolfus Choir/Ralph Allwood
CATALOGUE NO: SIGCD257
The freshness of attack you get with younger voices is put to incisive use by conductor Ralph Allwood, whose Rodolfus singers are all products of the famous Eton choral courses. Parry’s Welcome, Yule! can seldom have had a more sheerly ebullient performance, but the choir also brings formidable precision of pitching and ensemble to quieter settings, such as Tavener’s The Lamb and Poulenc’s O Magnum Mysterium. Some of the emotional deepening which comes with vocal maturity is occasionally missing, but there are many qualities here that compensate.