Crimson Voices of Praise

A fantastic 4 cd box set featuring the finest choral musicians and singers of our generation. Festive hymns, soaring anthems and the restful sounds of timeless plainchant make this an essential collection for lovers of fine choral music. CD1 Hymns for All Seasons. A selection of hymns for the church's year, from Advent to harvest festival, recorded in the churches and chapels of the city of Oxford and in some of the great cathedrals of England. A glorious celebration of an English tradition, with reminders of old favourites from times past, and some familiar and heart-warming tunes and words. CD2 A Treasury of Saints - Glorious English choral music. Like the architecture of the great English cathedrals, this music soars to the heavens and lifts the spirits. A theme of sainthood threads through the programme and music for a Medieval or Renaissance mass provides a serene context for a series of extravagantly crafted motets by the greatest English composers of the age. CD3 Meditation. The calming voice of this music, which is a thousand years old and more, speaks to us through the ages and remains as fresh as the day it was first written. Let your imagination roam, let meditative thoughts begin, by imagining a darkened cathedral in winter, with monks dressed in warm habits singing in the candlelight. Or imagine the same scene on a summer's evening, the doors of the cathedral left open to allow the full evening sun to flood in. Perhaps you could find yourself in the countryside at dawn, the mist rising from the valley and the birds singing gently. Gregorian chant can be what you want it to be. Its universal sound allows the mind to listen and to be free. It gives the imagination opportunity to think itself out of normal everyday life into a special, spiritual world of calm and orderliness. CD4 Music for Great Cathedrals. Choral music of the past - sounds of soaring voices reflect the architecture of Britain's medieval cathedrals, coloured by light from the late afternoon sun through a stained glass window.Soaring anthems and motets from the golden age of English choral music, by Byrd, Taverner, Gibbons, Tallis and others, composed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to be sung in the glorious acoustics of Britain's greatest cathedrals and churches.