James MacMillan - Miserere

The Sixteen, James MacMillan Miserere (Coro)

One thinks of The Sixteen as top of the league in performance of Renaissance polyphony, or one does if one is me. But here they present three pieces of modern Catholic choral music by James MacMillan. I have lost track of MacMillan's prolific output in recent years but few were bigger fans than I was of his Seven Last Words from the Cross and the other earlier works with which he made his name.

The first piece here is the Miserere, a setting of the penitential Psalm 51 best known in the version of Gregorio Allegri, the C17th Roman chorister who would be forgotten without it. In MacMillan's hands it is sombre and pitiful, sorrowful and spare, gaining strength gradually towards the prospect of redemption.

Among the Strathclyde Motets, the Lux aeterna is a wide and glorious aural spectacle that brings to mind the golden age of Thomas Tallis but the major attraction is the In splendoribus sanctum, for the occasion of Christmas Eve with all its expectation of wonder and miracle, marked by the use of trumpets apparently set some distance away. It is a special piece genuinely expressive of mystery and presage and would be worth the album's price alone were it not surrounded by such a profound and sometimes moving programme.

On first hearing I was less than convinced that this was any more than another disc of devotional choral music in contemporary style. On second and third runs through, it quickly established itself as a modern masterpiece and demonstrates that MacMillan is fulfilling all of his early promise.