Lauridsen: Lux aeterna & other choral works

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 (O magnum mysterium currently being the top-selling choral octavo in the country – the number 2 spot is also a Lauridsen work), and 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 surely stands 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.

Occupying a similarly opulent sound-world to Lux aeterna, the three Latin motets which conclude this disc are truly modern masterpieces in the traditional motet genre.

CDA67449  66 minutes 7 seconds
GRAMMY AWARD NOMINATION
‘Exquisitely sung by Polyphony with strong support from the Britten Sinfonia under Stephen Layton’ (The Observer)
‘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, Tav ...
‘Conventional choral wisdom suggests that the American Morten Lauridsen is a one-work wonder and certainly O magnum mysterium is wonderful, with vocal lines that arch out like fan vaulting. Wit ...