Lauridsen: O magnum mysterium, Lux aeterna, Ubi caritas & Other Choral Works

Album review

Despite the wide geographical separation between the music's point of origin and that of the performers -- Morten Lauridsen is based in southern California, while Polyphony and its conductor Stephen Layton are as English as they come, with a profound knowledge of the acoustic qualities of London's churches -- this disc represents an ideal match of music to performing forces. Polyphony has specialized in the accessible sort of contemporary choral music, with a warm sound attuned to the ethos of reassurance yet a deliberate precision that builds up long lines and inflects them strongly when necessary. They give definitive performances of a pair of ambitious and sharply contrasting pieces by Lauridsen, both of which have been well recorded in the past but which have never been so nicely addressed to one another.
Lux aeterna (1997) is a work made up of five different liturgical texts, beginning with the Introit from the requiem mass ("Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis") and ending with the Agnus Dei from the Mass Ordinary. It is filled with the trademark sounds of this composer, who uses too much dissonance to be brought under the minimalist umbrella but who creates full, lush textures using a relatively restricted (or at least slowly evolving) palette of harmonies and thus makes music with a contemporary kind of calming resonance. Lux aeterna, for chorus and orchestra, brings the Britten Sinfonia on board; Layton balances all his forces precisely in the splendid environment of St.-Jude-on-the-Hill in London's Hampstead Garden Suburb. The work is complemented by the inclusion of three shorter a cappella Lauridsen pieces in the same vein.
In sharp contrast stand the composer's Madrigali: Six 'Fire Songs' on Italian Renaissance Poems of 1987. Here Lauridsen attempts with some success to forge a modern language extended from the madrigals of Gesualdo and Monteverdi. Sharp dissonances are developed out of a single core sonority and build to a moment of supreme tension in the fourth piece, "Io piango" (I weep). In this work, too, Polyphony (now performing in London's Temple Church) remains firmly in control.
Lauridsen has admirers on both sides of the Atlantic. They, and indeed any general lover of choral music, will enjoy this disc. If you sing in a choir, check this recording out to learn just how good choral singing can get. Hyperion's engineers, working on what might be termed their home turf, have delivered this event in full fidelity.

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