Although his music is rarely heard today, in the early 1500s Robert Fayrfax was a major composer. His 29 surviving works are less elaborate than those of his contemporaries, but are similarly built around alternating sections of imitative counterpoint and high treble parts supported by slow moving harmonies. The Sixteen delivers first-rate performances that successfully exploit the music's textural richness and unique color.

Famed for its interpretations of some of Handels most loved works, The Sixteen marks the start of its 40th anniversary season by releasing its first new Handel recording in five years. Handels pastoral opera is a tale of love, tragedy and liberation. The libretto by John Gay, based on Ovids Metamorphoses (book XIII), tells of the eternal love between the mortal shepherd Acis and goddess Galatea and how it is doomed by the jealous cyclops Polyphemus. Handels music beautifully demonstrates the pain and love in such beautiful, dramatic choruses as Wretched lovers! and the grief felt by Galatea in Must I my Acis still bemoan. Staying true to the premiere in 1718, just five singers and nine instrumentalists feature on this intimate recording.

Saul may not be Handel's most dramatically coherent oratorio, but it is full of moments of high drama, and this recording with Harry Christophers, leading the Sixteen and an outstanding group of soloists, does a terrific job of making those moments throb with vitality. The singers bring an operatic intensity to their roles. Baritone Christopher Purves is a grippingly anguished protagonist, and his voice has plenty of power and authority. Mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly's David is vocally exceptional, a model of dignity and warmth, and her dramatic performance is subtly modulated. As Saul's daughters Merab and Michal, Elizabeth Atherton and Joélle Harvey have clearly differentiated voices and each brings a focused, vibrant soprano to her character. Among the principals, only tenor Robert Murray as Jonathan is disappointing for the unevenness of his vocal production.

The Sixteen, bright stars of the Baroque, have plenty to say on 20th-century repertoire (witness their excellent Britten series on Collins). Underpin them with the BBC Philharmonic and it might seem a magic formula. Ives’s unearthly The Unanswered Question holds few problems for instrumental players weaned on Maxwell Davies – no more than do the brilliant wind roulades of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. Deft BBC teamwork and a chamber articulation to woodwind and brass helps this Koussevitzky-commissioned masterpiece to shed its often hammy ‘big band’ sound, creeping closer to the subtle, leaner sonorities of his later choral works. It gains. The singing varies. Too many dynamic shifts sound prosaic or under-prepared; fortes are forced, with muddy results. The vocal blend (happier in lower voices) can seem haphazard and colours the Tippett, where the men’s roars – contrast the lovely, sensual soprano solo – seem crude. Get this disc, instead, for the rare, late Poulenc – his New York-commissioned Sept répons. It is a curiously under-recorded devotional work, bleeding with pathos yet pumping energy, its exoticism enhanced by slightly breathy, tender solos, and scintillatingly sung with just those crucial missing qualities of awe and freshness. A million times more refined than what goes before.

Charles II's formal Restoration in 1660 marked both an end and a beginning: the end of England's republican experiment and the beginning of a long process of monarchical reconstruction; and with a politically accident-prone king on the throne, Charles's public relations machine could never rest. Purcell joined its small team of composer operatives just as the wave of Stuart propaganda swelled massively, and he surfed the wave with breathtaking panache, from his first court ode – the simple but rousing Welcome, Vicegerent of the mighty King – to the ambitious Fly, bold rebellion involving verse settings in up to seven parts and a six-part chorus.

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.

A liturgically and historically well thought-out coupling of Byrd's works, which are probably among the best that English choral music of the early century has to offer. The Sixteen interpret with British distinction in expression, but great beauty of overall sound.

This series of 11 church anthems is a sterling example of doing more with less. Though their format is multiple movements for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, inviting grand treatment, Handel had available only a couple of oboes and a small string band and choir (with no violas or altos for numbers 1 to 6). Yet each one of these anthems is a gem. Handel's music captures well the changing moods of the Psalm texts–from somber penitence to serene bliss to infectious joy to the raging of storms and seas. Though James Bowman's arias lie uncomfortably low for him, he and Michael George do fine work; Lynne Dawson, Patrizia Kwella, and Ian Partridge are delightful. Harry Christophers leads his choir and orchestra in subtly inflected and beautifully paced performances.

Jephtha (1751) was Handel's last oratorio. It does not have quite the dramatic sweep of Messiah or Israel in Egypt, but it contains many moments equal to anything in Handel. These include the choruses, several of which are among the most dramatically effective fugues ever composed. One attractive feature of this excellent recording of the oratorio under the directorship of Harry Christophers is that these choruses are crystal clear in texture, with all the words intelligible: hard enough for the soloists, who likewise won't have you turning to the booklet, and well-nigh remarkable for a chorus. Christophers' group the Sixteen consists of 18 members here, plus an orchestra of 30, so this is a fairly sizable performance by current standards.

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.

The five new choral works on this album – by James MacMillan, Will Todd, Anna Semple, Eoghan Desmond and Lisa Robertson – all grew from a meditation by St John Henry Newman. Newman was a theologian of towering stature and broad influence. Canonised in October 2019, Newman's writings represent a rich and thought-provoking legacy and, alongside the new works presented, are immortalised in three well-known hymns and Sir Edward Elgar’s exquisite elegy 'They are at rest'. Also included are two of Elgar’s psalm settings – 'Great is the Lord' and 'Give unto the Lord'. These are monumental works for choir and organ, full of grandeur and drama, but also inherently simple. The album ends with a Bonus track by Bob Chilcott - also a Genesis Foundation commission - based on Psalm 139.

Once again The Sixteen and the Genesis Foundation have teamed up to bring premiere recordings of a fascinating selection of new choral commissions to audiences worldwide. The five new choral works on this album – by James MacMillan, Will Todd, Anna Semple, Eoghan Desmond and Lisa Robertson – all grew from a meditation by St John Henry Newman. Canonised in October 2019, Newman's writings represent a rich and thought-provoking legacy and, alongside the new works presented, are immortalized in three well-known hymns and Sir Edward Elgar’s exquisite elegy They are at rest. Also included are two of Elgar’s psalm settings – Great is the Lord and Give unto the Lord. These are monumental works for choir and organ, full of grandeur and drama, but also inherently simple. The album ends with a Bonus track by Bob Chilcott - also a Genesis Foundation commission - based on Psalm 139.

The Sixteen adds to its stunning Handel collection with a new recording of Dixit Dominus set alongside a little know treasure - Agostino Steffani’s Stabat Mater. Full of virtuosity, vibrant colour and dynamic energy, Handel’s Dixit Dominus captures absolutely the Italian style of the period. Handel’s control of forces is masterly and the range of texture and style is breathtaking. Written during the composer’s time in Italy in the early eighteenth century it is amongst his first autographed works and also one of his finest.