John Rutter – Gloria
and other sacred music

Polyphony
City of London Sinfonia
The Wallace Collection
Andrew Lumsden
Stephen Layton

Gramophone Editor’s choice
Gramophone Critics’s choice

BBC Music Magazine
August 2001

John Rutter's output of sacred choral works is immense, and these vibrant performances amply demonstrate the qualities that give the repertoire its lasting and popular appeal. The pieces recorded here attest, in particular, to Rutter's success in the United States. However, it is the irresistible inevitability of these scores (representative of Rutter's style) and the sheer technical refinement of the singing that will attract collectors.

In a magnificent rendering of the Gloria, choir, organ and brass make a powerfully dramatic impact richly enhanced by the splendidly reverberant Winchester Cathedral acoustic.  There is comparable brilliance in the similarly scored Praise the Lord and Te Deum (which ends the programme) and the lush unaccompanied choral textures of Come down, O love divine.  The mellifluous lyricism of pieces such as To everything there is a season and I will lift up mine eyes reveal Rutter's more intimate side.

Elsewhere, the musicians demonstrate Rutter's consummate gift for sweetly harmonised caressing melodies that continue to haunt the memory.  The fluid clarinet-playing in The Lord is my light and my salvation and the glowing radiance of Thy perfect love are just two such instances in a concert that will bring widespread comfort and joy.

Nicholas Rast

Performance: ***** Sound: *****
+ BBC Music Magazine’s symbol for performances of outstanding quality

Gramophone
August 2001

This superb disc contains a balanced cross-section of John Rutter's sacred choral music, spanning over a quarter century and featuring several first recordings.  Dedicated to the memory of his son, Christopher - tragically killed in a street accident in Cambridge earlier this year - it contains a selection of largely contemplative pieces framed by two 'heavyweight' works, with accompaniments for organ, brass and percussion.  Beware the unwary listener who sets the volume control too high - the blistering brass which open the Gloria will tear you from your seat!

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 (sometimes over saccharine), 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 deliciously echt Sullivan at the end of the Te Deum and, in I my Best-beloved's am, an occasional vision of the neo-Byzantine sound-world 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 in Winchester Cathedral (for the brass items) and All Saints Tooting (for the orchestra and a cappella pieces), all the forces involved play to perfection.  Greatly enjoyable and strongly recommended.

Malcolm Riley

EDITOR'S CHOICE - Delicious performances of Rutter's wonderfully approachable and finely crafted vocal writing.  The sound, too, is outstanding.

Amazon.co.uk
July 2001

As demonstrated on Rutter-Gloria and other Sacred Music, John Rutter is what happens when you mix some Fauré, Walton, Britten and touch of Sondheim in a bowl and simmer gently. It's no recipe for credibility among the front ranks of contemporary music. But as often happens with composers who shop around for inspiration, the result turns out to be something oddly personal. Rutter writes with elegance and clarity and a melodic gift exactly suited to his purpose, which is almost always choral music. And this is the second disc which Stephen Layton's outstanding professional choir, Polyphony, has devoted to his work. The pieces here are of a lesser calibre than on the first Choral Works but notable for a striking, macaronic adaptation of the Francis Quarles text "I my Best-Beloved's am", as well as the haunting beauty of the biblical "To everything there is a season". And it's hard not to enjoy the sheer, bare-faced bravura of the way the Gloria out-Waltons Walton. To hear this music is to understand how Rutter has effectively become in-house composer to the Anglican Communion.

Michael White

International Record Review

This ample anthology, poignantly dedicated to the memory of the composer's son, opens with a triumphantly exuberant performance of the Gloria, which deservedly remains one of John Rutter's most popular works. Polyphony not only perfectly complement the instrumental sparks of the outer movements, but give an extremely sensitive rendition of the reflective middle section. The Te Deum, which inhabits a similar sound-world, is given an equally impressive performance. Come down, O Love divine, a lyrical, ardent work which at times suggests Britten, is a very impressive achievement indeed, beautifully written and sublimely sung.

Also decidedly effective is I my Best-Beloved's am, which gains its distinctive character from its plainsong inflexions. I cannot be so enthusiastic about Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace, whose use of stylistic cliché (Sondheim and Mahler, as the composer has affirmed) imparts a soupy sentimentality to St Francis of Assisi's text, and I have similar reservations about To everything there is a season. This is the kind of writing for which Rutter is famous, of course, but there's no getting around the fact that you either love it or loathe it. Appropriately enough for an American commission, there is something of a Copland-like sense of space about I will life up mine eyes, but once again its lyrical qualities, its technical competence (and impressive orchestral introduction) do not quite compensate for its predictable inoffensiveness. For those who admire Rutter's work, this disc, performed as it is in such an exemplary fashion, will be a festival.

For those who, like myself, have reservations, it will nevertheless offer excellent performances of two of his best ceremonial pieces and, in Come down, O Love divine and I my Best-Beloved's am, introduce aspects of the composer's work that are less familiar and reveal, in greater measure, his very great gifts.

Ivan Moody

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