The Eternal Ecstasy

Description

Over the last fifty years a new style of choral writing has emerged from the US which has captured the imagination of church- and concert-goers, and record buyers alike across the globe. This style can summarised as timeless, spacious, and rapturous, with an innate depth of visionary and transcendental spirituality. These features have led to the simple, but apposite, description of the ‘Ecstatic Style’ .

This collection of unaccompanied choral works from the choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge, under their director, Sarah MacDonald, was recorded in the incomparable acoustics of the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral. It explores the development of the ‘Ecstatic Style’, from its beginnings in 1940s America to the present day, with representative works from major US composers Randall Thompson, Morten Lauridsen, and Eric Whitacre to established British composers, John Tavener, Paul Mealor, Cecilia McDowall, Alan Bullard, and James MacMillan, together with an early British example of the style in William Harris’ sublime double-choir anthem, Bring us, O Lord God. The recording also includes a substantial number of works by younger British composers, Iain Quinn, David Bednall, John Duggan, and a new work especially written for this collection by Phillip Cooke ‘The Eternal Ecstasy’ to words from the writings of Saint Teresa of Avila, and all receiving their first commercial recording.