The tremendous success of British composer John Rutter is beginning to spawn imitators, both back in the direction of more challenging music and here, from composer Will Todd, in the direction of even more smooth and mellow. Todd in the past has composed jazz-flavored settings of sacred texts, but here, in a collection of mostly English texts (despite the album title), he smoothes almost everything down to pleasant tunes with diatonic harmonies. The album certainly delivers on its "Music for Peace and Reflection" subtitle, ...
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The tremendous success of British composer John Rutter is beginning to spawn imitators, both back in the direction of more challenging music and here, from composer Will Todd, in the direction of even more smooth and mellow. Todd in the past has composed jazz-flavored settings of sacred texts, but here, in a collection of mostly English texts (despite the album title), he smoothes almost everything down to pleasant tunes with diatonic harmonies. The album certainly delivers on its "Music for Peace and Reflection" subtitle, and Todd's effort to control the musical surface even leads him to write many of his own texts. A few pieces, such as the concluding Christus est stella, could have been composed by Rutter, but the majority of the music has a greater density of simple diatonic harmonies than Rutter would permit himself. It's safe to say that if listeners a) like Rutter, b) listen to Britain's Classic FM, or c) are comfortable with music that could land in the new age bin as well as in the classical...
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