EMR CD068 | DETAILS
  EMR CD068
   
 

THE LIGHT OF LOVE

   
  Tredici
Rob Burton (sop. sax.) | Alba Merchant (vc.)
Eluned Pierce (hp) | Simon Earl (org.)
Andrew Foan (cond.)
   
  EAN 5 060263 500643

EM Records is delighted to present a recording of choral works by contemporary composer Paul Carr, whose lyrical and intensely touching works never fail to move and delight. This disc contains the World Première recording of ‘The Light of Love – A Requiem Mass’ (2020), alongside his setting of Psalm 23 (2014, rev. 2017).

 

Carr’s more recent ‘The Light of Love’, scored for mixed-voice choir, soprano saxophone, cello, harp and organ, is modelled on Mozart’s famous Requiem. As a contemporary reinterpretation of the traditional requiem mass, Carr’s piece sets a new text in English (by librettist Euan Tait) alongside the usual Latin text. Written in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the circumstances surrounding the work’s composition and recording have been imbued with particular significance both for the composer and for all participants in the recording process.

TRACK LISTING AND AUDIO EXTRACTS
     
Paul Carr (b.1961)
‘THE LIGHT OF LIFE – A REQUIEM MASS’ (World Première recording)
1. ‘Requiem aeternam’  
2. ‘Kyrie’  
3. ‘Dies irae’  
4. ‘Tuba mirum’  
5. ‘Mors stupebit’  
6. ‘Rex tremendae’  
7. ‘Recordare’  
8. ‘Confutatis’  
9. ‘Lacrimosa’  
10. Offertory (‘Domine Jesu / Hostias’)  
11. ‘Sanctus (Benedictus)’  
12. ‘Agnus Dei’  
13. ‘Lux aeterna’  
       
14. PSALM 23 (World Première recording)  

 

REVIEWS
Beautifully shaped by Benjamin Frith... Beguiling sounds, graced by the tawny richness and unexaggerated line of Richard Jenkinson’s cello playing... The sense of purpose and sureness of line of Ian Venables’ music is pure oxygen.
EMR CD31 | BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Exquisitely rewarding... Ravishing accounts.
EMR CD029 | CHOIR AND ORGAN
This is music of great beauty and integrity and the performances fully do it justice. It would be criminal to let it pass you by.

EMR CD028 | INTERNATIONAL
RECORD REVIEW

The Bridge Quartet approach these pieces with a sympathetic and insightful warmth, and confirm their ambassadorial credentials for British chamber music. A lovely, radiant disc.
EMR CD025 | Gramophone
Duncan Honeybourne’s playing is astonishingly affectionate, yet never saccharine... Honeybourne plays with suave confidence.
EMR CD024 | INTERNATIONAL PIANO
Rupert Marshall-Luck is an ideal interpreter: generously but not effusively lyrical; agile and athletic... The warm, folk-song like slow movement is at times almost painfully beautiful, with a shimmering pastoral central section... Marshall-Luck is, again, indefatigable and keenly picks up on the work’s melancholic strain.  Finely recorded and with comprehensive booklet notes, this is a must for fans of 20th-century English repertoire.
EMR CD023 | THE STRAD