The sacred choral music of 20th-century British composer Kenneth Leighton (1929-88) has been fairly if not generously treated on disc, headed by excellent recordings from St. Paul’s Cathedral (Hyperion) and the Finzi Singers (Chandos). This very fine collection joins those, duplicating some repertoire and adding to the list a performance of Leighton’s first setting of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, subtitled Collegium Magdalenae Oxoniense in reference to the choir for which it was composed. The style of Leighton’s compositions embraces the characteristics of much of the English cathedral music of the last century, including significant, often virtuosic organ parts and wide-ranging (both in vocal registers and dynamics) choral writing that incorporates substantial blocks of dissonance into the tonal harmonic structure, along with angular melodies and lively, often irregular rhythmic schemes that emphasize natural textual inflection (much of this a clear debt to Britten).
The Choir of St. John’s College and its director Christopher Robinson are totally at home in this music, powerfully conveying the drama of the Magdalene Magnificat in the huge tutti passages and then perfectly rendering the evocative opening of the anthem Give me the wings of faith with just the right prayerful sensitivity. Rhythmic precision is on abundant display throughout An Easter Sequence, which also features Crispian Steele-Perkins’ bright trumpet and lovely treble solo singing by Benjamin Durrant, who returns in the motet What love is this of thine? An Easter Sequence also is memorable for the colorful organ solo passages and for its beautiful setting of the 23rd Psalm. The sound gives a realistic spatial/acoustic impression of the St. John’s College Chapel while preserving good balances with organ and choir. The full-chorus and organ sections are really solid and powerful and the upper registers of the treble are bright and clear.
