Cecilia McDowall reviews
Cecilia McDowall: Choral Works
Trinity College Choir, Cambridge/Stephen Layton, et al (Hyperion)
Cecilia McDowall: Organ Works
William Fox (organ) (Naxos)
After Silence
VOCES8/Barnaby Smith, et al (VOCES8 Records)
Rosa Mystica
Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir/Paul Spicer, et al (SOMM)
McDowall's 'colourful scores' conveyed by the Trio Derazey
Composer Cecilia McDowall (b1951) brings a notably vivid imagination to her colourful scores. Sometimes richly tonal, sometimes more exploratory in harmonic range, her music is always full of invention and this warm, accessible disc conjures enticing scenes of midnight nightingales, ghostly Venetian waters and Kandinsky’s vibrant painting palette.
Contemporary Marian Motets: The Marian Consort performs Music for the Queen of Heaven
This is the Marian Consort’s eighth CD for Delphian, and just the second time that it has ventured beyond the Renaissance repertoire which made its reputation, into the realm of contemporary and 20th-century composers. |