Stainer: I saw the Lord

Heavenly Voices celebrates the tradition of music making at St. John’s College Cambridge. The varied repertoire featured on this Heritage disc not only showcases their versatility but confirms their reputation as one of the UK’s finest cathedral choirs.

The first in a new series from Regent charting a musical journey through the church’s year at well-loved cathedrals.

This journey in music through a year at York Minster features a number of works written for the Choir of York Minster.

Several First recordings.

Featuring either the boy or the girl choristers, together with the Songmen.

Includes Charles Stanford’s Magnficat in G sung by Isabel Suckling (The Choirgirl).

Few choirs in the world today offer greater precision, musicianship and sheer beauty of sound than The Sixteen. This collection offers the great anthems of English Choral Music over the past 100 years, part of the Cathedral Music tradition which (alongside the Anglican Hymn) is widely considered England’s greatest single contribution to music before The Beatles!

An album which could lead many to discover a whole new world of music, aided by performances of radiant beauty from Harry Christophers and The Sixteen.

One of the most popular and versatile chamber choirs in the UK, the Vasari Singers have thrived for over thirty years, delighting audiences and critics with their passion, sensitivity and ethos of excellence – “one of the finest small choral groups of our time” Gramophone. This disc celebrates some of the great anthems by 19th- and 20thcentury British composers. They are masterful works, and a mainstay of church and cathedral choral repertoire.

This recording brings together six of the larger and finer English anthems from the nineteenth century. It includes works by Wesley, Stainer and Ousley who all set about raising musical standards in this period of Anglican church music.

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.