Tenebrae & Nigel Short - On Eagles' Wings: Sacred Choral Works by Alexander L'Estrange (2016)

Alexander L'Estrange, medieval French name and all, is a contemporary English composer of mostly vocal and choral music, much of it accessible and appealing. A song cycle on the historical development of the bicycle is part of his catalog. On Eagles' Wings is a group of sacred pieces seemingly suited to English collegiate choirs' unquenchable thirst for new repertoire, but L'Estrange benefits here from performances by Tenebrae and director Nigel Short, as crack a choral ensemble as there is anywhere. The album is blurbed by John Rutter, and it tends toward his harmonic and melodic vocabulary, with a somewhat simpler and more inspirational (and less oriented toward classic poetry) set of texts than Rutter might choose. L'Estrange has also performed and recorded jazz, and that's what provides the most interesting new component here: in no way is there a surface jazzy element, but the music throughout has a rhythmic impetus that comes from that realm and sets L'Estrange's work aside from Rutter's. This is true even in the very traditional New College Service at the beginning (tracks one and two), which makes as good a place as any to begin sampling. Signum's engineering work at St. Jude's Hampstead is stellar. -- James Manheim