The Sacred Flame: European Sacred Music of the Renaissance and Baroque Eras

"A new recording by John Rutter and his Cambridge Singers is always welcome, and this one features 20 works drawn from the sacred choral repertoire of the Renaissance and Baroque. Most of these are motets and many are familiar (Palestrina's Sicut cervus and Exsultate Deo, Gabrieli's Jubilate Deo, Lassus' Timor et tremor, Josquin's Ave Maria). You'll be happy with the performances, which throughout this recording are at the high level we always expect from this choir and director: vibrant, articulate, carefully balanced, and always attentive to a given work's inherent expressive possibilities. The instrumental ensemble, the relatively "new" La Nuova Musica, is first-rate, its timbres adding textural variety and layers of color to nine of the selections." (10/10 ClassicsToday.com)

A major new disc on Collegium from John Rutter, the Cambridge Singers and La Nuova Musica, featuring a collection of outstanding motets from the canon of European sacred choral repertoire.

Focusing on the extraordinary body of choral music produced for liturgical use during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, The Sacred Flame explores the rich and varied ways in which European composers responded to sacred texts. Delving into a treasure-trove of music from cultural centres as diverse as Amsterdam, Antwerp, Leipzig, Milan, Rome, and Venice, this collection features familiar classics by Gabrieli,Monteverdi, Palestrina and Schütz, as well as less widely-known masterpieces by Bach, Buxtehude, Hassler and Sweelinck. All are performed in stunning new recordings by the Cambridge Singers at their sensuous and virtuosic best, joined here for the first time on disc by the instrumentalists of La Nuova Musica, rapidly establishing areputation as one of the UK's most exciting early music ensembles.

All repertoire featured on The Sacred Flame is drawn from the enormously popular European Sacred Music collection edited by John Rutter for the Oxford University Press Oxford Choral Classics series. Recorded in the unparalleled acoustic of the Great Hall at University College School in London, and produced and engineered by award winning producer Simon Eadon, the performances of these much loved works heard on this disc are set to become definitive.

"These singers of John Rutter's choir are so expert, so very good at everything they do… They shade and shape the phrases beautifully" Gramophone