The Choir of Kings College London & Joseph Fort - Frank Martin, Kenneth Leighton: Masses for Double Choir (2019) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Mass, Op. 44: I. Kyrie
02. Mass, Op. 44: II. Gloria
03. Mass, Op. 44: III. Credo
04. Mass, Op. 44: IV. Sanctus
05. Mass, Op. 44: V. Benedictus
06. Mass, Op. 44: VI. Agnus Dei
07. Mass for double choir: Kyrie
08. Mass for double choir: Gloria
09. Mass for double choir: Credo
10. Mass for double choir: Sanctus
11. Mass for double choir: Agnus Dei
12. Postlude pour l’office de Complies



In the 1920s Frank Martin, a Swiss Calvinist by upbringing, created a radiant Latin setting of the Mass for double choir, only to return it to the bottom drawer, considering it to be ‘a matter between God and myself’.

It was finally released for performance forty years later, around the same time that the Edinburgh- based composer Kenneth Leighton made his own double-choir setting – a work with moments of striking stillness, delightful to choral singers and yet rarely recorded.

Contrasts and comparisons abound at every point in this fascinating pairing of Masses from the supposedly godless twentieth century, and are brought out to the full by The Choir of King’s College London’s impassioned performances. A short organ postlude by the teenage Jehan Alain, written on retreat in a monastery in 1930, follows like a voluntary concluding the liturgy.

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [flac]

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [Hi-Res]