The Marian Collection - Benjamin Nicholas, Peter Phillips, Choir of Merton College, Oxford

This is the fourth and final themed recording in a series that has confirmed Merton’s new choral foundation as one of the UK’s leading collegiate choirs. Benjamin Nicholas again draws from the landmark collection of more than fifty-five works written in celebration of the College’s 750th anniversary. Here, a new work by Judith Weir (newly appointed Master of the Queen’s Music) heads a set of the four Marian antiphons, all specially commissioned from female composers, while two further premiere recordings represent the work of regular Merton collaborators Gabriel Jackson and Matthew Martin.

At the other end of the chronological spectrum, Peter Phillips’ expert direction of Byrd’s rarely performed Salve Regina, a bold statement of Catholic faith from Reformation England, and of John Nesbett’s late 15th-century Magnificat, a piece whose neglect on disc is astonishing, completes this portrait in sound of a woman who – as characterised in Alexandra Coghlan’s illuminating booklet essay – is at once virgin and mother, human and God-bearer, suppliant and Queen of Heaven.

"the jutting vocal fanfares of [Weir's] Ave Regina caelorum set a brightly celebratory atmosphere at the disc's beginning...The seven-part writing of Hannah Kendall's numinous Regina caeli is lucidly balanced out by the singers...Of the other works the glowing Magnificat of 15th-century composer John Nesbitt is particularly notable, bringing gleaming work from the sopranos in particular." --BBC Music Magazine

"Benjamin Nicholas and Peter Phillips have done a marvellous job in training these young singers to such a consistently high standard...As for the sound, it seems to me that engineer Paul Baxter definitely has the measure of the wonderful acoustic of the Merton chapel and this recording is beyond reproach." -MusicWeb International

1. Judith WEIR (b.1954) Ave Regina caelorum
2. Giovanni Perluigi de PALESTRINA (c.1525-1594) Alma Redemptoris mater
3. Sir John TAVENER (1944-2013) Mother of God, here I stand
4. Kerry ANDREWS (b.1978) Salve Regina
5. John NESBETT (fl.1474-1488) Magnificat
6. Hannah KENDALL (b.1984) Regina caeli
7. William BYRD (1543-1623) Salve Regina
8. Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971) Ave Maria
9. Dobrina TABAKOVA (b.1980) Alma Redemptoris mater
10. Gabriel JACKSON (b.1962) I say that we are wound with mercy
11. Robert PARSONS (c.1535-1572) Ave Maria
12. Sir John TAVENER A hymn to the Mother of God; Hymn for the Dormition of the Mother of God
13. Matthew MARTIN (b.1976) Salve sedes sapientiae
14. Anton BRUCKNER (1824-1896) Ave Maria