by Paul Matheson

The Sixteen: ‘Angel of Peace’ (The Choral Pilgrimage 2025), directed by Harry Christophers (Coro COR16210, )

At the start of each year, one of the things I look forward to is the comforting prospect of being treated to another Choral Pilgrimage by the world-class UK-based choral ensemble The Sixteen. Every year of this millennium, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen have prepared a fresh programme of sacred choral music and renaissance polyphony and have taken it on tour around the UK from March until October, performing the music in the settings that it was originally composed for: cathedrals, minsters, abbeys and churches. This year’s programme is called ‘Angel of Peace’: it features soaring, ecstatic plainchant by the medieval abbess Saint Hildegard of Bingen; joyous large-scale English renaissance antiphons by John Taverner; modern-yet-ancient-sounding hypnotic compositions by the contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt; and two recently-commissioned modern works combing solo violin and choir in settings of texts by Cardinal John Henry Newman and Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

The Sixteen will perform ‘Angel of Peace’ in Edinburgh’s Greyfriars Kirk on Saturday 27 September at 3pm. I urge readers not to miss it. Harry Christophers has prepared an absorbingly beautiful and varied programme of choral music to mark the 25th anniversary of the Choral Pilgrimage. The CD recording being reviewed here is available now, and it was recorded in conditions as close as possible to live concert performance (in All Hallows Gospel Oak Church, London).

When coaching The Sixteen to interpret and perform sacred music, Harry Christophers attaches great value and significance to the importance of the words, of the building in which the singing takes place, and of live performance. Of buildings, Christophers says ‘All the composers of the renaissance were writing with the buildings in mind – just as the people who had been the architects of the cathedrals had the music in mind. The music fits the space like a glove.’ Regarding live performance, Christophers says: ‘You can achieve almost anything with technology now. But when you hear a choir singing live there’s a fragility, a humanity. Audiences feel us communicating directly; it’s not just about making beautiful sounds in beautiful spaces, it’s what we’re singing about.’ On the importance of words, Christophers is deeply conscious that the composers of the renaissance were people of faith who believed in the truth of the religious texts that they set to music. In a recent interview with Gramophone magazine, he explained that ‘very few people who come to our concerts today know the Latin, so in the way we perform it, we’ve got to convey that expression. We’ve got to show what’s happening in the music.’

Paul Matheson is a policy advisor on equality, human rights and standards in public life.