Mendelssohn: I Waited for the Lord

This 2-CD set contains an extremely wide range of music for boys' choirs, from the early polyphony of Allegri's Miserere to the present-day popular songs of Prince and Enya. Also included are some interesting works by some great 20th-century composers such as Copland, Britten and Ned Rorem.

The featured choirs are some of the world's most notable boys' choirs, from the Vienna Boys' Choir and the American Boychoir to, perhaps the best-known of them all, the Choir of King's College, Cambridge. The most recent of the choirs here is Libera, formed by their conductor, Robert Prizeman, from school boys from around south London.

So, for those who already find the freshness and youthfulness of boys' voices uniquely appealing here is the perfect compilation. For those who have yet to make the discovery this set should prove a delightful musical journey.

This sequence of music for Lent, Passiontide and Easter represents a journey through perhaps the most dramatic part of the Church’s year. It is a season which has inspired many composers to write some of their most potent pieces, and contrasts the seriousness of intent and poignancy found in, say, Lotti’s Crucifixus with the exuberance of music such as Philips’s Ecce vicit Leo.

Other favourites in this anthology include Mendelssohn’s I waited for the Lord, Bruckner’s Christus factus est, and the beautiful Gibbons setting of Drop, drop, slow tears with the soloist Anthony Way (who caused such a stir in television’s The Choir). There are also two important new works, by John Sanders and Brian Chapple.

A celebration both of Easter and of exceptional singing.