Stabat Mater / the Silent Land / Magnificat I

The four pieces on this disc span three decades of Giles Swayne's choral music output, their striking echoes of Latin plainchant, Tudor polyphony and traditional African music providing contrasting and complementary strands characteristic of this much-travelled composer. Magnificat I draws on the music of the Senegalese Jola people and the Ba-Benezele of the Congo. His moving threnody, This Silent Land, scored for 40-part choir and solo cello, combines words from Requiem Mass and Christina Rossetti's poetry, while Stabat Mater is dedicated to the grieving mothers of Israel and Palestine.