The
title work
on this album by composer
Francis Grier
was commissioned in 1991 and broadcast on the BBC. Another performance followed at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 2010, but it was never recorded until this 2023 release. It is a remarkable work, quite unlike anything else out there, and conductor
Michael Waldron
and the
London Choral Sinfonia
have done a great service by bringing it to the wider world. Commissioned for Good Friday, the work recounts the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in narrative and music. Those sampling it should not neglect the Narration movements, which tell the Christian story in the plainest and most relevant of modern language, with two narrators; one represents the role of Mary. The texts for these were written by
Rowan Williams
, later the Archbishop of Canterbury but at this time a professor at Oxford, and they're worth hearing on their own for their simplicity and directness.
Grier
draws the texts of the musical passages from various sources: the Bible, Christian and Orthodox hymnody and liturgy, and the Book of Common Prayer. They are nicely matched to
's music, which mixes contemporary English collegiate choral style with medieval-sounding polyphony and influences from India, where
lived for some years. There is a short second act consisting of short pieces by composers from
Elgar
to
Owain Park
; the
achieves the requisite glassy sound in these, but there is rightly a bit more grain to their singing in
Sword in the Soul
. This setting of the most familiar of all stories in the Western tradition manages the considerable trick of being totally fresh. The album appeared on classical best-seller lists in the spring of 2023. ~ James Manheim