After thirty years of world-wide performance and recording, The Sixteen, "The Voices of Classic FM", are recognised as one of the world’s greatest ensembles. Comprising both choir and period instrument orchestra, The Sixteen's total commitment to the music it performs is its greatest distinction. Its special reputation for performing early English polyphony, masterpieces of the Renaissance, bringing fresh insights into Baroque and early Classical music and a diversity of twentieth century music, is drawn from the passions of conductor and founder, Harry Christophers.
The Sixteen has recently featured in the highly successful BBC Four television series, Sacred Music, presented by actor Simon Russell Beale.
The Sixteen’s album IKON was nominated for a 2007 Grammy.
A New Heaven narrows the gap between our secular age and a time when the Anglican Church was among the most important patrons and consumers of British music. It also offers listeners the chance to reconnect with spiritual matters richly expressed by composers with the flair and imagination required to distil big issues of life and death into miniature forms.
Sir Hubert Parry: I Was Glad
I Was Glad
Charles Wood: O Thou the Central Orb - anthem
O Thou the Central Orb - anthem
Sir William Henry Harris, Edmund Spenser: Faire is the heaven
Faire is the heaven
Charles Villiers Stanford, Psalm: Beati quorum via
Beati quorum via
Sir Edward Cuthbert Bairstow: Blessed City Heavenly Salem
Blessed City Heavenly Salem
Sir Hubert Parry: Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Henry Balfour Gardiner: Evening Hymn
Evening Hymn
Howard Goodall, Sacred: The Lord is My Shepherd
The Lord is My Shepherd
Edgar Bainton, Traditional: And I Saw A New Heaven
And I Saw A New Heaven
Sir Hubert Parry: My Soul There Is A Country
My Soul There Is A Country
John Stainer: I Saw the Lord
I Saw the Lord
Herbert Howells: Like as the Hart
Like as the Hart
Charles Wood, John Keble: Hail, Gladdening Light
Hail, Gladdening Light
John Rutter, Numbers 6, v.24: The Lord Is My Shepherd
The Lord Is My Shepherd
May 2009
*****
“Hubert Parry's glorious Coronation anthem 'I was glad' unfolds in waves of increasing elation and broad, sweeping lyricism. It's a tremendous performance by The Sixteen, and it's an effective composition. There are many others like it… These are proud, expansive, superlatively sung performances...”
May 2009
“…The Sixteen provide such precision in their attention to detail in dynamics, diction, attack and, most of all, intonation. For me, however, the most luminous singing is reserved for Parry's My soul, there is a country where, owing to the careful shading of dynamics, the meaning of Vaughan's poem is conveyed with a new and revelatory insight.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
I Was Glad
