Visitatio Sepulchri

"It is remarkable that a Dutch choir can offer such strong and polished performances of these two choral works by James Macmillan, readily surmounting any problems over singing the English text of the a cappella writing in Sun-Dogs...Altogether a fine coupling of two superb works"
(Gramophone Award Finalist 2011 - Choral)

"Here's music of elemental power, rooted in old European harmonies and plainchant, but also infused with Eastern wisdom. Here is passion and pain, and a burning Roman Catholic faith, though the opera's story also resonates as universal myth. MacMillan conducts Netherlands Radio forces in a vivid performance"
(The Times)

"[Sun Dogs] is a tour de force of choral writing, in which Macmillan is always assured and in the layered execuition of which the Dutch professional choir excels, it sets texts by Michael Symmons Roberts...with memorable results...It would be hard to imagine a more fervent performance than this"
(Five Stars BBC Music)

With music that combines rhythmic excitement, raw emotional power and spiritual meditation,James MacMillan (b. 1959) has rapidly established himself as a leading international composer. On BIS, seven previous releases feature instrumental works by him, and now the time has come for the first disc with scores involving voices. MacMillan is unusual among mainstream contemporary composers in that his output includes a high proportion of choral works, from music to be used in weekly church services to virtuoso writing for soloistic multi-voiced choirs. On the present disc are two world première recordings: the 45-minute Visitatio Sepulchri for chorus and chamber orchestra (a recording of the version for solo voices already exists) and the 23-minute a cappella Sun-Dogs. As with so much of MacMillan's production, both works reflect the composer's deep involvement with matters of religious - and more specifically Roman Catholic - faith. The longer work is a setting of a medieval liturgical drama which describes the scene from the New Testament where three women go to visit the Holy Sepulchre on the day after Christ's crucifixion, and learn that he has risen from the dead. Sun-Dogs instead uses a contemporary text, by the poet Michael Symmons Roberts, which in MacMillan's own words is: 'richly allegorical, evoking a range of emotions and images, dark and terrifying one minute, radiant and ecstatic the next.' In both works the composer allows a number of diverse musical influences to surface: those of composers such as the mystic Olivier Messiaen and the expressionistic Harrison Birtwistle, of Gaelic psalm-singing typical of the Hebrides and of Tibetan Buddhist chanting. The scores also include various techniques such as deep breathing, whistling and stage-whispered, toneless chanting. Performing these exciting works are the singers of the eminent Netherlands Radio Choir, one of the largest and most versatile professional choirs in the world, conducted by its current chief conductor, Celso Antunes (in Sun-Dogs) and by the composer himself.