Rutter: The Lord bless you and keep you

For her second Deutsche Grammophon album, former Royal Harpist Catrin Finch plays music by the beloved British composer, John Rutter, as well as new pieces and arrangements of her own.

It includes new works by John Rutter, and the World Premiere recording of his Suite Lyrique for harp and strings. Further highlights include arrangements of traditional Welsh folksongs, where Catrin Finch is joined by star award-winning Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas.

John Rutter is probably the world's most-performed choral composer, with decades of best selling compositions and arrangements to his name - including an anthem specially commissioned for the royal wedding by Prince William and Kate Middleton, and some of the most loved Christmas carols of modern times.

Dominus Illuminatio Mea - The motto of the University of Oxford provides the inspiration for this album of a cappella choral classics performed by one of the greatest choirs in a city of great choirs. Includes a brand new arrangement of the famous Inspector Morse theme tune by Barrington Pheloung in this 25th Anniversary year of Oxford’s most famous fictional detective.

No composer alive today more completely embodies the Anglo-Saxon choral tradition than John Rutter, whose compositions and arrangements have enjoyed endless success around the world.

These illuminating performances are licenced from John Rutter’s own Collegium label, taken from albums many of which have sold in six-figure numbers over the years. The performances can hardly be bettered, directed by John Rutter with his hand-picked choir, recorded in the iridescent acoustic of the Chapter House in Ely Cathedral.

Dame Felicity Lott, revered British soprano, says of this CD:

“ Summertime also has many of my favourite songs in English, French and German. We made the CD at a friend`s house, and the sessions were so relaxed, with no London traffic to cause endless retakes! It`s a real mix of beautiful songs of all kinds, on a summer theme. I chose songs I loved, from Gershwin to Christopher Robin….

Three centuries of song are represented here, and, as BBC Music Magazine's Hilary Finch put it “such is the skill of Johnson's programming that the entire recital seems to be a single, sustained exhalation of rapture and reflection”

She went on to say:

The upper reaches of Lott's still gleaming soprano inhabit Barber's 'Shining Night' and Fauré's Clair de lune'. And her robust English version of Schubert's 'Who is Sylvia?' finds an irresistible companion in Arne's 'Where the Bee Sucks', with its veritable midsummer night's dream of an accompaniment from Johnson. The artists' palpable sense of joy and well-being gathers momentum as they visit Berlioz's 'L'île inconnue' and as they sing on the water with Schubert. . . . And Lott and Johnson know well that the only way to face sentiment is to acknowledge its own integrity, as they do when they listen to Haydn Wood's 'Little Brown Bird' and eavesdrop with Fraser-Simson on Christopher Robin saying his prayers.

This CD features songs from a great variety of composers - Gershwin, Barber, Cole Porter, Bernstein, Brahms, Schubert, Arne, Schumann, Berlioz, and many more. A full 29 tracks of summer-themed songs!

John Rutter is probably the world's favourite choral composer, and over the course of his long career has created some of the most popular and often performed pieces for vocal ensemble.

All 22 tracks on this collection performed by The Cambridge Singers, the choir which Rutter founded back in 1981, the tracks range from the joyous "Shepherd's pipe carol" of 1966 to the 1995 setting of Philip Sidney's poem "My true love hath my hear" from Birthday Madrigals.

The disc opens with one of Rutter's best-known works, the timeless "For the beauty of the earth" and also includes his settings of Psalm 23 and "All things bright and beautiful"--popular with choirs and audiences alike--as well as two movements each from his Magnificat and Requiem. Most tracks are accompanied by the City of London Orchestra, breathing new life into works which are often heard only with piano accompaniment.

The perfect gift for Christmas!

For his final recording with the men and boys of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, Benjamin Nicholas has chosen to celebrate Britain’s best-loved living composer, John Rutter. Rather than simply sticking to familiar classics, this programme explores the full range of the composer’s output from 'The Lord is my shepherd' and 'Lord, thou hast been our refuge' to his most recent piece 'This is the day', written for the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Rutter’s rare communicative gifts are given a special glow by the refulgent acoustic of Tewkesbury Abbey and the choir’s luminous singing.