Product Review

Compilations from a performer's catalog are often musically hit-and-miss and programmatically shaky. But when you have a catalog as strong, varied, and musically rich as the Cambridge Singers', the question is not how to find appropriate material but how to reduce the first-rate choices to fit on a single CD. This one offers a wide range of selections, including chant, Renaissance sacred and secular works, folk song, and 20th-century pieces. Every track contains a gem--music and performance--so it's hard to list only a few highlights. There's the Pie Jesu from Fauré's Requiem, Allegri's famous Miserere, several classics by Byrd, Orlando Gibbons's popular "The silver swan," and two masterful folk-song arrangements by Rutter. But among the 15 works featured, John Sheppard's "In manus tuas" (one of the glories of the English Renaissance) and Rutter's "What sweeter music" (his most famous piece) alone make this disc worth owning. --David Vernier