The popular choral group the Sixteen has never sounded better than on this release, and fans of the ensemble can buy with confidence in acquiring a set of classic English Renaissance pieces with a few modern works for spice. For the unconverted it's a bit less convincing, but it has a strong idea. The album title comes from the conventional name of a prayer of none other than St. Patrick, set in modern English by Arvo Pärt in 2007.

Ann Murray is one of the leading mezzo-sopranos on the international scene. (She is not related to the famous Canadian popular music singer with a similar name.) The Irish-born singer was educated at the Royal Manchester College of Music, where she studied with Frederic Cox. She bases her career in London, where she sings regularly at the English National Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. With the former she has sung Charlotte, Rosina, Beatrice, Xerxes, and Ariodante.

Recorded in 1995, this Esther was first issued as Collins Classics 7040-2 early the following year. Like Hogwood, Harry Christophers recorded the original 1718 version of what has gone down in history as Handel’s first English oratorio.
In point of fact, the complex and still largely unresolved history of Esther suggests that it was not originally composed as an oratorio at all, but rather as a staged work that would have formed a companion to the near-contemporary Acis and Galatea.

Sarah Connolly is an exemplary Handel singer. Her recital is dominated by two roles she's performed at ENO, with arias from Alcina and Ariodante. 'Scherza infida' is an addictive mixture of vocal elegance and poignant desolation, and 'Mi lusingha' is sung with a beautiful simplicity that lacks for nothing in drama or passion. In contrast, the extravagant coloratura in 'Dopo notte' and the robust 'Sta nell'Ircana' capture the virtuoso thrills of heroic joy. In Dejanira's 'Where shall I fly?', she reminds us that taste and subtlety have an important place even in Handel's tormented and emotionally unstable creation. She avoids contrived intensity and allows the quality of the vocal writing to speak for itself.

When we last left Harry Christophers and his cracker jack a cappella chorus the Sixteen, they were making fabulous recordings for the wonderful Collins label. But that was back in the halcyon days of the CD boom, those far off times called the '90s, when everyone with a little capital and a lot of taste could start a record label. Back in the '90s, Christophers and the Sixteen made more than a dozen wonderful recordings for Collins, among them one of the most moving recordings of Henry Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary ever made. But the digital boom went bust and so did Collins, taking with it all of Christophers and the Sixteen's discs.

Frank Martin's most important choral work is his a cappella Mass for Double Choir (1922-1926), though he also composed several short occasional choral pieces, which Harry Christophers and the Sixteen present with the Mass to round out this 2005 release. By arranging the program with less familiar works first, Christophers wants listeners to discover the variety of Martin's vocal writing, and to hear pieces that are seldom performed, let alone performed as well as this superb ensemble delivers them.