Robert Wylkynson, the Eton man, leads the Renaissance side with his Salve Regina, 14 minutes that are not quite as intricate as his Jesus Autem Transiens or as compelling as the Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis that was to follow some decades later. It does, nonetheless, aspire to the condition of either as a 9-part motet that generates restrained intensity.
James MacMillan, for the contemporary side, provides O virgo prudentissima that comjures, as much as his religious music does, a harsh universe in need of salvation from his deity. It has become a stranger and more unsettling place, more in need of deliverance, than ever it was, possibly because that God seems ever more remote. MacMillan's solo soprano part will be one of several reasons to return to this record, that repays re-playing exponentially.
But those two larger-scale works aren't necessarily the clear-cut highlights. Gabriel Jackson's Ave Maria pre-empts MacMillan's soprano line, and uses two, to compelling effect, dispelling all the worries one can't help having when a composer is annotated as 'born 1962'.
Robert Fayrfax's Eternae laudis lilium is a further helping of the endless balm that the choral music of his age provided. I noticed, when leaving it playing in another room, that it doesn't serve as background music, which you might think it would. It starts to sound irrelevant and lightweight at a distance whereas it benefits from our attention, as it should.
Once we are beyond the pedestrian observances of the first track, the whole album is as good as any of its genre if we bet without the small handful of sublime masterpieces in the canon and I should know because reviews sell these records to me as easily as labels sell cool fashion to young people.
Having had some short cameos by John Tavener earlier, it's not obvious why Song for Athene is listed as a 'bonus track' but it's the encore, isn't it, having been saved for the purpose in the same way that Lou Reed kept Perfect Day for his second encore when I saw him.
But whereas Lou's song might have become jaded by familiarity, or possibly not even being that good, that won't happen to Tavener's gradual unloading of dirge and wonder. If there are still great works being written, and surely there must be because it wouldn't just stop, it is a recent example. Just because Bach isn't knocking out a new cantata every week these days, we don't give up hope completely.
One wouldn't want to listen to this music all the time and one wonders if Harry Christophers, or Peter Philips of The Tallis Scholars, don't sometimes look forward to getting home to put on their Mud, Slade or Gilbert O'Sullivan albums but we owe them a debt for doing what they do because one needs this just as must as Tiger Feet.
I hope this isn't the best new disc I buy all year but it wouldn't be a bad thing if that's how it turns out.
