<<  -- 2 --  Adrian Williams    MEMORABLE & TREASURABLE

I was reminded of the old vinyl recordings made by the All Saints Choir School just before it closed back in the 60s, when boys and men got together and recorded as much as they could of all the music they'd ever sung, a fitting epitaph for a glorious era. If they're not already available, someone please release them on CD ... Now the choir-school building echoes to the sounds of Buddhist chanting, even audible on a Sunday morning across the road in the church main courtyard itself.

The current professional choir of twelve good men (and women) and true lends its own special quality to this disc, even if the danger is that such a group can sound like the BBC Morning Service. Their performances of the copious (and inevitable) sections of plainsong which this disc mops up from the Hymnal are wonderfully natural, if at times a little nervous-sounding, and contrast well with the boldness of the few general congregational hymns.

I felt the juxtaposition of the first two hymns (good thumping ones, Ride on, Ride on in majesty and All Glory Laud and Honour [listen -- track 2, 3:58-5:03]) deprived the chance of breaking up the acres of plainsong with one of them later on, and additionally the jump from B flat in the first to C in the second was only palatable by virtue of the disc as a whole being so special.

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