The Choir of Royal Holloway, Rupert Gough - Bo Hansson: Endless Border & Other Choral Works (2012)

Tracklist

01. As When Day Dawns
02. Salve Regina
03. Then I Heard the Singing
04. For as the Rain
05. The Place Amongst the Trees
06. Missa brevis: I. Kyrie
07. Missa brevis: II. Gloria
08. Missa brevis: III. Sanctus & Benedictus
09. Missa brevis: IV. Agnus Dei
10. Lighten Mine Eyes
11. Endless Border

The Swede Bo Hansson is a man of many talents: a guitarist, and a composer of a wide range of music in folk and jazz idioms. Choral music might be a relatively recent departure for him but its roots run deep, back to the days of his childhood when he sang as a treble in his local choir. He has observed that ‘the human voice is the closest you can come to your soul’ and in that search he writes music that demands much of its performers in its sustained intensity of sound, a penchant for a cappella and a fresh way with word-setting even in the most established of texts, as in the darting energy of the Gloria from the Missa brevis.

Rupert Gough and his Royal Holloway Choir are no strangers to Hyperion, having previously made waves in music by Baltic composers Miškinis and Dubra. Here’s yet another sign that he’s one of the most exciting choral conductors of his generation.

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [flac]