The subtitle of "A Bridge of Dreams," a 2011 album with Ars Nova Copenhagen and Paul Hillier, is "a cappella Music from the Pacific Rim," and it includes the works of composers from Australia, New Zealand, California, and China, all of which draws in part, if not entirely, on non-Western musical traditions. Lou Harrison left the accompaniment for his Mass for Saint Cecilia's Day open-ended and here Andrew Lawrence-King provides a discreet undergirding using medieval harp, psaltery, and hurdy-gurdy. It bears a strong resemblance to Medieval plainchant mass in its predominantly monophonic, melismatic writing, and its modal character. The modes, though, are Harrison's own, based on traditional Indonesian and Chinese scales. The mass is a beautifully expressive, immediately engaging piece that reveals a fresh facet of the composer's brilliantly expansive imagination.

As all four of the discs in this set have been reviewed in these pages before, this notice accordingly provides only a brief summary. J. F. Weber discussed the Read more in Fanfare 33:2, the Weihnachtshistorie and Auferstehungshistorie (the Nativity and Resurrection narratives) in 33:5, and the Matthäus-Passion in 35:1, while Ronald E. Grames and I both covered Die sieben Worte and the Johannes-Passion in 34:2. In all instances the reviews were enthusiastic and offered unqualified endorsements of these performances as the recordings of choice for these works; now having the opportunity to hear them all, I heartily re-affirm that collective judgment.