Rubbra: Crucifixus pro nobis - Choral Music

The Choir of Merton College and Benjamin Nicholas here place Rubbra's sacred music at the heart of his creative life, tracing through his career the composer's conviction that faith was not a subject to be illustrated but a principle that governed musical thought itself. At the head of the programme is the first recording of Cantata di Camera (Crucifixus pro nobis), in which the choir is joined by tenor Benjamin Hulett and instrumentalists from Britten Sinfonia. In a fascinating contrast to Leighton's setting of these words from the same year, Rubbra builds a single, continuous span, allowing musical ideas to accumulate in a deeply affecting work whose beauty lies in its patience, its glowing harmonic language and its atmosphere of sustained reflection.