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The Sacred Flame - Cambridge Singers   

I'll be honest, my mental image of the Cambridge Singers is of rather heavy handed singing, suitable for John Rutter's jolly carols, but not exactly competition for the Sixteen. However in this collection of Renaissance and Baroque they have proved they can do subtlety too. The Monteverdi pieces bounce along with just enough lightness. There's a wonderful range of the best music here. Gesualdo's O vos omnes, for example, is full of 'he can't do that!' moments - it's electrifying. Buxtehude's chunky and jubilant Magnificat adds a little light relief among the exquisite likes of Victoria and Josquin Desprez... and it runs through neatly through Schütz to the (relatively) trendy 'new' music of Mr Bach.

All in all a great collection.

Caleb Simper’s Music

The Story of the Crucifixion (1905)

This mini-cantata, a Lenten devotion, has words by the Reverend Thomas Blackburn (Rector of Woodville, Adelaide, Southern Australia). Unlike the longer works there are no congregation hymns - it consists of short choruses interspersed with solos and is only 16 pages long. In the publicity blurb it was described as: 'although more pretentious than The Story of the Cross, contains no difficulties an average choir cannot easily overcome'.

Watch this space for a MIDI file of the Story of the Crucifixion.

An interesting detail on our copies of The Story of the Crucifixion is a hand overstamp above the publisher's name (Weekes), saying CALEB SIMPER, Kilbirnie, BARNSTAPLE - this may indicate that our copies were obtained directly from Simper.