17 January 2012
These treasures are linked with varying degrees of intimacy to Christ Church. Tallis’s Salvator Mundi is in its Baldwin partbooks, an important source of English Renaissance polyphony. John Taverner was the institution’s first informator choristarum, justifying the inclusion of his Christe Jesu, while John Tavener wrote his alluringly simple setting of The Lord’s Prayer for the choir in 1984. Slightly less directly connected are John Rutter’s appealing Canticle of the Heavenly City, composed for the unveiling of a John Piper window at St Mary’s Iffley, and Britten’s A Shepherd’s Carol, whose words are by WH Auden, an alumnus. And so on. A varied recital, beautifully sung by one of the finest Oxbridge college choirs.
Stephen Pettitt