Carl Rütti

Lieder der Liebe

Cambridge Voices

Veronica Henderson cello

Ian Moore director

Presse-Echo:

May 1996 (Summerton, UK)

Reviews: Song and Choral

Rütti:

Swiss born Carl Rütti's affinity for the sacred choral tradition in English music - a consequence of repeated visits to Brompton Oratory while a student in London in the late 1970s - finds expressions in his own choral works. If the featured works are typical, Rütti's reference points would seem to be largely modern. Aspiring to pertinent contemporaneity of a Jonathan Harvey, he nonetheless allows several allusions to Howells and Rubbra, while also having an individual and often very attractive voice all his own. The most substantial work - engagingly varied seven part Lieder der Liebe (1993) - is also the most recent and, with Veronica Henderson's sumptuous, shivering cello accompaniment, the exception to the a capella rule. The short motet, O magnum mysterium, the movingly simple four-part setting of The Lords Prayer (Vater Unser) and the larger, often exuberantly scored Gloria extracted from 1982's Missa Angelorum, do much to whet the appetite for more.

Ian Brown's Cambridge Voices are on fine form, sculpting ecstatic and exquisite sounds as required in a recording that is, perhaps, a touch too spacious all round.

Michael Quinn

1995: Herald HAVPCD 183

Sounds:

Lieder der Liebe - "Tou hast ravished my..."

(60sec, 484KB, mp3)