The music of Ephrem Podgaits (b.1949) is new to me, but on the evidence of his Missa Veris (“Spring Mass”) he has something to say and is not afraid to say it. The work, which on the testimony of the choir members here was an immediate and lasting success, is often disconcertingly reminiscent of Britten (Psalm 150, Missa brevis, St Nicholas ...), and at times recalls Faure (though always filtered through the curiously British sound of the Vesna Children’s Choir, Moscow). None the less it is written with great assurance and elan. The most consistently striking and original movement is the haunting Credo, a winding chromatic chant, though there is also an immediately engaging playfulness in the “Benedictus” and the final “Alleluia”, for example, which must have won not only the hearts of the Vesna Choir but of their audiences.
Bortnyansky’s three-voice Liturgy sets seven sections from the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom in a fresh, appealing manner (and with an unbelievably rapid Credo) and deserves to be heard more often. The Vesna Choir, sprightly, beautifully in tune and full toned, do it more than justice. In all, a delightful disc.'