Byrd: Sing joyfully

“England has never produced a greater composer than William Byrd. His music for the Anglican Church has been sung without interruption since the 16th century. In stark contrast his Catholic music was not heard for over 300 years. This selection compares the formal public style of Byrd’s Anglican works like The Great Service with the plangent intimacy of his Masses and motets.” Peter Phillips

This release presents several polyphonic motets from the Renaissance and Baroque periods in which the joy of Christmas Eve is gloriously portrayed. The Hamrahlid choir was founded in 1967, performing and touring extensively in Europe and of course, in the Choir’s home territory of Iceland.

Soothing English sacred choral music from the Tudor and Stuart periods, by some of England’s finest composers. Perfect music to calm the soul, performed by the outstanding Richmond Consort. The consort is made up of singers who regularly perform in the UK’s most prestigious cathedrals and colleges. They specialise in early music both sacred and secular and perform regularly throughout the UK and the rest of Europe.

The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, directed by Timothy Brown perform Tudor Anthems and Motets by an array of sixteenth century composers including the ever popular Byrd and Tallis and the less familiar figures of Dering, Philips, Mudd and Farrant. Clare College Choir is one of the UK’s finest mixed choirs.

A wonderfully-varied collection of favourite (and some rare!) anthems from this under-recorded cathedral choir.

Includes music associated with Rochester with music from Robert Ashfield and Barry Ferguson.

Robert Ashfield’s classic large-scale setting of The Fair Chivaly and Barry Feguson’s beautiful setting of words by St Theresa of Calcutta It was in that train.

Classic Handel, beautiful modern works from Bob Chilcott and Peter Nardone and a rare recording of Stanford’s magnificent Coronation Gloria.

Scott Farrell’s first recording with the choir since being appointed Director of Music at Rochester in 2008.

The psalms, which have been used in worship for at least 2500 years, express a huge spectrum of human emotion and experience, and contain hymns, laments, songs of trust and thanksgiving, pilgrimage and wisdom. The beauty and immediacy of their texts has inspired some of the finest choral music, a vivid selection of which is presented here, on Lincoln Cathedral’s latest choir recording. Psalms sung to Anglican chant, accompanied by Lincoln’s boundlessly-colourful Willis organ, provide a glimpse of the Cathedral’s daily musical offering. The same texts are then presented in settings from across five centuries, from Palestrina to Jonathan Harvey.

A treasury of favourite psalms, poetry and music, from the immortal 23rd psalm to Thomas Hardy's poignant evocations of English country churches, complemented by music such as Vaughan Williams' magnificent 'Tallis' fantasia.