The Micklegates are celebrating their 50th anniversary this season, as well they might. This disc, a generous 80 minutes, with 26 tracks, is a representative selection from live concerts given between 2003 and 2012.
It is remarkable how homogeneous the choir’s sound has remained over that period, all of it under Nicholas Carter’s direction. In keeping with the intention of its founder, Ronald Perrin, this remarkably varied programme often flirts with the fringes of the repertory and is all the more exciting for that.
At its centre lie two larger pieces, Arvo Pärt’s The Beatitudes, which builds a sense of prayerful adoration towards its powerful organ conclusion, and Sumsion’s In Exile, with the Israelites discovering muscle while weeping in Babylon. Negro spirituals, Britten, Bernstein, Wood’s triumphal Hail, Gladdening Light, three witty epigrams by Nicholas Maw, Holst, a Tudor motet, even Swingle, are all part of this eclectic mix.
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