Ivo Antognini always writes human-scale, singable music that nonetheless manages to touch on profound themes. It's most effectively sampled in miniature in something like Hope is the thing with feathers, based on the Emily Dickinson poem and dedicated to a friend nearly lost in the first wave of Covid. It's simple, but like Dickinson's verse, it conceals a winding punch of seriousness. It takes disciplined singing to bring off this kind of thing and the Trinity choir don't pull rabbits out of hats or go for unearned climaxes. Stephen Layton has the singers exactly on point in material like Lux aeterna and the quietly devastating Those tender words, based on Rumi, another poet who conceals profundity in deceptively simple forms.

Choir of Trinity College Cambridge / Stephen Layton (dir) Hyperion CDA68425 [65:54] ★★★★