by Paul Matheson

When Sleep Comes – Evening Meditations for Voices & Saxophone - performed by Tenebrae with Christian Forshaw (saxophone), directed by Nigel Short (Signum Classics SIGCD708)  - listen here

This choral sequence of penitential settings for Passiontide is the outcome of an emotional and musical collaboration between the celebrated, award-winning vocal ensemble Tenebrae and the virtuoso saxophonist and composer Christian Forshaw.

This deeply meditative collection of choral music was prepared during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, and recorded in the warm acoustic of All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak, London. When Sleep Comes incorporates Forshaw’s saxophone into the arrangement and performance of medieval and renaissance sacred music (including St Hildegard von Bingen, Thomas Tallis and Orlando Gibbons) and the 19th century compositions Abide With Me by Henry Lyte & William Monk, and Renouncement by the Catholic writer, poet and leading suffragette Alice Meynell. The CD is accompanied by a helpful booklet of notes and texts, and the following information draws from those notes.

Paul Matheson is a music reviewer and diversity officer with the police.