Caritas Chamber Choir: All Shall be Amen
Ulysses Arts

Some things about Caritas Chamber Choir's sixth album surprise, some things don't. In the latter category is the incandescent luminosity of the British chamber choir's singing and the stirring impact of its renditions; considerably more surprising is the homogeneity exemplified by All Shall be Amen when it features material by nine composers. Of course some degree of cohesiveness is assured when many of them are represented by multiple pieces—Gabriel Jackson four, Neil Wright, Phillip Cooke, and Sarah Cattley three apiece, David Conte two, and Benedict Preece, the choir's founder and Music Director, two also (represented by single pieces are Andrew Smith, Eric Choate, and Cecilia McDowall).

The release has appeal beyond the sheer beauty of the performances. Sixteen of the twenty selections are world première recordings, and the work of living composers is championed. Many are artists whose music the ensemble has regularly performed and recorded, while others are new to the fold. Founded in 2011, Caritas Chamber Choir on this recording comprises seven sopranos, seven altos, five tenors, and six basses, the members drawn from the East Kent area and including professionals and advanced non-professionals. Its name comes from the Latin word for charity, and consistent with that the choir often raises funds for charities, churches, and other worthy causes.

Commissioned to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the foundation of Beaulieu Abbey, Jackson's A prayer of St Bernard of Clairvaux sets a reverential tone at the outset, after which Wright's sorrow-tinged E flat minor setting O vos omnes brings a darker hue to the recording. By contrast, Cattley's Prayer of Richard Rolle uplifts with its song of praise and expression of appreciation for music's divine gifts. Her other contributions, the soaring My eyes for beauty pine and lustrous O Lord, support us, are as transfixing. The first of three Cooke pieces, Ubi Caritas weaves voices into a melodically stirring tapestry, with the soloing of soprano Catherine Futcher and bass David Peirson rising above the vocal mass. In his second setting, the atmospheric Nunc dimittis, Cooke backs the solo singing of bass Graham Titus with humming and exploits vocal polyphony as the choir builds to a glorious climax.

Jackson's Adoro te devote and O salutaris hostia distance themselves from the others in their use of melismatic vocal lines and pedal-point drones. The composer gets the final word when his All shall be Amen—deemed by Preece “surely one of the great works of the 21st Century in the choral repertoire”—concludes the recording with enthralling “Alleluia” and “We shall praise” declamations. As arresting is McDowall's Rise heart; thy Lord is risen for the antiphonal interplay between the lower and upper voices.

The San Francisco-based Conte is represented by two pieces, the strophic By night while others soundly slept (from Three Mystical Songs) and Night prayer, that testify to his growing stature as an American composer. The first artfully progresses from a melody sung in unison to four-part harmony and then full choir, the transitions effected so seamlessly they almost go unnoticed. Even more affecting is Night prayer for its reverential character and the resplendence of its climax and final “Amen.” One of the album's most stirring pieces, Keep watch, dear Lord, comes from Choate, who studied with Conte and whose work appears alongside song cycles by Conte and Joseph Stillwell on the wonderful early-2023 release Nature, Love, and Death (Arsis Audio).

November 2023