The American countertenor Christopher Lowrey founded the vocal Ensemble Altera ‘to form the beating heart of professional choral music in the United States’. Now regarded as one of the finest and most enterprising choirs on the North American continent, Altera has devised this musical tour through sacred territories which focuses on epic narratives from various periods, from Renaissance music to the present day. The programme includes timeless works by Gibbons, Lotti, Scheidt and Bruckner, as well as twentieth-century compositions by Poulenc, Messiaen and others. Barber’s celebrated Adagio sits alongside the moving Salvator Mundi, taken from Herbert Howells’s Requiem. Not forgetting three world-premiere recordings of works written or arranged for Altera by composers Joanna Marsh, Zuzanna Koziej, and Michael Garrepy, who has arranged Were you there?

Sound/Video

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Marsh: Worthy is the Lamb
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Howells: Requiem: Salvator Mundi
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Koziej: The Lamb
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Poulenc: Mass in G major, FP89: 5. Agnus Dei
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Łukaszewski: Responsoria Tenebrae: 4. O vos omnes
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Leighton: Drop, drop, slow tears
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Lotti: Crucifixus a 8 voci
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Bruckner: Mass No.2 in E minor, WAB27: 6. Agnus Dei
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Trad.: Were you there (arr. Michael Garrepy)
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Scheidt: Cantiones sacrae: Surrexit Christus hodie, SSWV18
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Gibbons: O clap your hands
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Grier: Panis angelicus
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Messiaen: O sacrum convivium!
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Ešenvalds: O salutaris Hostia
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Barber: Agnus Dei (based on Adagio for Strings)

Europadisc Review

Although in the secular Western world it is easily eclipsed by the festive fuss at Christmas, Easter remains the major feast of the Christian calendar, its atmosphere of joyous celebration heightened by the sombreness of Holy Week that immediately precedes it. It’s an ideal time to release a disc tracing ‘The Lamb’s Journey’, the Lamb in question being the figure of Jesus Christ. This Alpha release has been masterminded by countertenor Christopher Lowrey (familiar to listeners from several Baroque and contemporary opera recordings) together with his 23-voice chamber choir Ensemble Altera.

In his absorbing and detailed booklet notes, Lowrey draws parallels between events in the life of Jesus (as marked across the liturgical year) and the ‘monomyth’ proposed in Joseph Campbell’s posthumously-published book The Hero’s Journey (1990). The Christian story contains many elements (The Call, The Trial, The Return…) that have parallels far beyond the confines of institutionalised Christianity.

As it happens, this ‘choral narrative’ is comprised exclusively of sacred church music, but Lowrey’s point is that these works – chronologically and stylistically varied as they are – can have a far wider appeal and relevance than the immediate circumstances for which they were composed. The performances themselves are wonderfully refined and expertly blended, with that combination of radiance, power and transparency that comes with the best chamber choirs. Although formed only relatively recently, the Ensemble Altera (based in Providence, Rhode Island) certainly lives up to its ambition ‘to be the beating heart of professional choral music in the United States.’

The programme mixes early and modern classics with new compositions and arrangements. Composed to a text from the feast of Christ the King, Joanna Marsh’s Worthy is the Lamb immediately commands attention with its angular lines, biting harmonies and incisive organ accompaniment (played by James Kennerley). The opening of Herbert Howells’s Requiem, ‘Salvator mundi’ brings the first of many striking contrasts, its anguished lines exquisitely shaped. A new setting of William Blake’s ‘The Lamb’ by Zuzanna Koziej draws the listener teasingly into its mesmerising soundworld, the vocal lines and words projected with remarkable suppleness and delicacy. It’s a fascinating alternative to the now ubiquitous work by the late John Tavener.

The first of three Agnus Dei settings on the disc presents this prayer to the Lamb of God as set in Poulenc’s Mass in G major, its opening soprano solo sung with heart-rending beauty and piercing tone. From this moment of great tenderness we are then plunged into the agonies of Holy Week with ‘O vos omnes’ from Pawel Łukaszewski’s Tenebrae Responsories, with its stratified opening and stunningly deployed dissonances. On a purely technical level this is one of the disc’s vocal highlights, and Łukaszewski’s handling of this key Holy Week text is masterly.

‘O vos omnes’ dovetails surprisingly well into the gentler, more inward world of Kenneth Leighton’s ‘Drop, drop, slow tears’ from his Passion cantata Crucifixus pro nobis. The crucifixion theme is carried over into eight-voice Crucifixus by Antonio Lotti, a rapt, beautifully paced performance which in many ways forms the album’s centrepiece, its chains of sequences imbued with an air of mournful inevitability. The ‘Agnus Dei’ from Bruckner’s E minor Mass caps this for sheer volume, underpinned by organ accompaniment, in a gloriously expansive account that forms a generous nod to this year’s bicentenary celebrations as well as emphasising the visionary nature of Bruckner’s musical language.

The American Eastertide spiritual ‘Were you there’ in arrangement by Michael Garrepy (a member of Ensemble Altera’s bass section) starts off with a simple solo, but the setting becomes increasingly lavish, at times bringing to mind the high-end arrangements of carols that are a feature of the Christmas season, and building to an ecstatically full-throated climax before the repose of the final bars. ‘Were you there’ takes us from Calvary to the Resurrection, and Easter is celebrated in Samuel Scheidt’s call-and-response motet Surrexit Christus hodie, its dance-like rhythms deliciously pointed, with a pert solo soprano animating proceedings. Scheidt’s English contemporary Orlando Gibbons is represented by his glorious Ascensiontide anthem O clap your hands, and the warm, resonant acoustics of St Paul’s Church, Cambridge (Mass.) add to the captivating sonic glow.

Three works for the feast of Corpus Christi form the climax of the programme. Francis Grier’s haunting Panis angelicus has soprano and tenor solos weaving their lines above undulating lower voices. Messiaen’s 1937 motet O sacrum convivium! begins in a mood of shrouded mystery, but the quintessential harmonic language is enthralling, and it builds to a moment of sheer ecstasy that could only come from this composer. It’s something of a jolt then to the altogether sweeter musical language of Ēriks Ešenvalds, but the eminent singability of his O salutaris hostias, with its pure-voiced solos and duets, vividly illustrates why his music is so popular with present-day choirs.

The disc ends with Samuel Barber’s touching Agnus Dei arrangement of his own Adagio for Strings, and it receives here a performance of rare poise, intense expressivity, carefully controlled dynamics and flawless intonation – characteristics of the programme as a whole, vividly captured by Alpha’s recording team. If it continues to deliver performances of this standard, Ensemble Altera under the inspired direction of Christopher Lowrey will be a group to watch (and listen to!) for many years to come. With a reach beyond the immediate Easter season, this is a compelling disc that should delight fans of fine choral singing throughout the year.