BBC Music Magazine, Ashutosh Khandekaris
Recording of the Month, December Issue
Five Stars

Ashutosh Khandekaris is “captivated by the Corvus Consort and harpist Louise Thomson’s shimmering song showcase”.

“An Immaculate Collection. Corvus Consort, Louise Thomson and Freddie Crowley are dazzling.”

“Under its founder-director Freddie Crowley, Corvus Consort is always full of fresh thinking.”

Here we have a collection of works spanning a century up to the present day, composed for female voices and solo harp. Gustav Holst was a champion of this combination of forces, and three of his works provide a framework for ten compositions by women, introduced by his daughter Imogen Holst’s Welcome Joy and Welcome Sorrow, a setting of six Keats poems inspired by the poet’s love of Devon…

Elizabeth Poston emerges as a composer of originality and substance, more avant garde than her well-known Christmas music might suggest. Commissioned for the Farnham Festival in 1966, her An English Day-Book was intended to complement Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and showcases her powers as a brilliant miniaturist…

Also featured in the collection are influential women composers of more recent times, including Judith Weir, Gemma McGregor, Olivia Sparkhall and Hilary Campbell, all contributing short commissions inspired by the 14th­century female mystic Julian of Norwich. Sparkhall’s Lux Aeterna for double choir, makes simple but effective use of the spatial separation of the singers, setting the serene beauty of women’s voices in a spiritual dimension.

Gustav Holst’s intense study of Indian culture gave rise to several works for female voices on mythological themes. His Two Eastern Pictures are orientalist rhapsodies on spring and summer, while settings of hymns from the ancient Hindu Rig Veda refract Indian musical modalities through Holst’s distinctly European prism. These exotic forays provide a springboard for two new works by Indian-American composer Shruthi Rajasekar, specially commissioned for the album. Corvus’s grasp of a more authentic classical Indian musical style in Ushas – Goddess of Dawn is impressive, with convincing pronunciation of the Sanskrit texts.

“The 12 superb sopranos and altos of the Corvus Consort sing the complex, close­knit textures of these works with delicacy and pinpoint accuracy. Louise Thomson’s immaculate, virtuosic harp playing conjures scenes that take us from scented gardens to sun-baked landscapes and haunted moonlit forests. The vocal/ instrumental balance is well­nigh perfect in Chandos’s clear, nuanced recording.”

This dazzling collection has been put together with help of leading arts and education charity Multitude of Voyces, who have supported many of the commissions here. The palette may be restricted, but

“Crowley and his young singers have opened up a jewel-box of glinting, shimmering choral gems, shining anew.”