Rutter: A Clare Benediction

“Naxos continues its conquest of Cambridge's college choirs and finds that from Clare College on excellent form. I suspect this will be one of those Naxos recordings that sells by the ten thousand rather than merely the thousand.” Gramophone Magazine

“There is no doubt that this new recording is exceptionally fine with the Clare College choir on top of their very considerable form…This CD is another feather in the Naxos cap and is urgently recommended.” MusicWeb International

“The newest Naxos recording of the Requiem tends to trump all previous versions, even the composer's own very fine account. Recorded in the expansive acoustic of Douai Abbey, Berkshire, it is very beautifully sung indeed...Elin Manahan Thomas is the ideal soloist, singing the Pie Jesu with touching simplicity and rising up celestially in the Lux aeterna.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

'Delicious performances of Rutter’s wonderfully approachable and finely crafted vocal writing. The sound, too, is outstanding' (Gramophone)

“This superb disc contains a balanced cross- section of Rutter's sacred choral music, spanning over a quarter century and featuring several first recordings. Rutter's stylistic hallmarks are all here: an unfailing knack to get to the root of the text, exquisitely balanced vocal writing, melting harmonies, intensely sweet turns of phrase, short ecstatic climaxes, but also a willingness to be astringent, and rhythmically powerful. There are nods to pageantry, for example in the conclusion of the Gloria with its Waltonian swagger, some decliously echt Sullivan at the end of the Te Deum and, in I my Best-beloved's am, an occasional vision of the neo-Byzantine soundworld of his fellow Highgate School pupil, John Tavener.
The artistry of the 25 full-bodied voices of Polyphony is beyond reproach, only suffering a deficit in sheer volume when pitted against the full fury of The Wallace Collection. Sumptuously recorded, all the forces involved play to perfection. Greatly enjoyable.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This 60th-birthday tribute brings together a selection of John Rutter's short anthems and folksong arrangements, plus a couple of extracts from his Requiem. Impeccably crafted, they're invariably neatly and effectively composed, and not too difficult for amateur choirs. These performances given under the composer's baton by a choir he founded are faultless and presumably definitive. The sound is warm and lucid.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2005