JAMES MACMILLAN (b.1959): Laudi alla Vergine Maria, The Song of the Lamb, Invocation, Cantos Sagrados, KENNETH LEIGHTON (1929-1988): God's grandeur, Missa Sancti Thomae, Quam dilecta!.

Description: MacMillan was a student of Leighton, who was a leading composer of Anglican church music, and the influence of teacher upon student is readily apparent in the highly contrapuntal approach both take to their choral writing. MacMillan is a good deal more harmonically adventurous than the relatively conservative Leighton, though both adhere to an idiom firmly based in tonality. Leighton's Mass is especially fine; lyrical, with a convincing sense of emotional contour, the organ part contributing dramatic impact at key moments. MacMillan tends to use the organ for coloristic effect, as in the powerful Song of the Lamb, setting a text from the Book of Revelation. His Cantos Sagrados, treating the subject of repression, freedom and religion, is especially dramatic, and the farthest removed from the devout assurances of Leighton's sympathetic settings of his sacred texts. Texts included. David Saint (organ), Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir; Paul Spicer.