The Sixteen are prolific enough that one wonders why they need to slice and dice previous releases for reissues. Yet freshness of programming is one reason this English choir (actually bulked up to 18 for most of these works) is a consistent best-seller. To a selection of works by Britten and William Cornysh (probably a father-son pair, but reasonably enough treated as a single composer here) they add three new recordings of works by Cornysh to create an original program. This is fairly novel, and it promises to have the ...
Read More
The Sixteen are prolific enough that one wonders why they need to slice and dice previous releases for reissues. Yet freshness of programming is one reason this English choir (actually bulked up to 18 for most of these works) is a consistent best-seller. To a selection of works by Britten and William Cornysh (probably a father-son pair, but reasonably enough treated as a single composer here) they add three new recordings of works by Cornysh to create an original program. This is fairly novel, and it promises to have the primary feature of a really good thematic program, namely, that it illuminates other facets about the composers involved in addition to its external idea. In this case, that means the mutual influences of sacred and secular forms in the music of these two composers. But the program does more than that: it reflects as well on Britten and the nature of his relationship to the English musical past. Britten was a composer who took a great deal from the English choral tradition without...
Read Less
