Lux—Voces8 (Decca 22601)
Lux is Latin for “light” and this is a luminous selection of pieces spanning over 400 years from Thomas Tallis and Gregorio Allegri to the English rock group Massive Attack and the Ben Folds Five. Lux contains popular classics such as Allegri’s Miserere and Elgar’s Lux Aeterna, set to the melody of Nimrod from the Enigma Variations. Paul Mealor’s Ubi Caritas was commissioned by Prince William and sung at the Prince’s wedding to Catherine Middleton in 2011. And there are pieces here by two of the most talked about composers of our time: Norway’s Ola Gjeilo and Will Todd of the UK. Voces8’s last disc, Eventide, was one of our favorites last year, and Lux has done it again for the English octet. As in Eventide, obbligato saxophone and cello make otherworldly additions to several tracks, joined this time around by harp and water glasses.
Featured Mon 1/4, Mon 1/18 (originally featured in March 2015)