The extraordinarily lavish choral transcriptions of Clytus Gottwald have been superbly captured on disc by Accentus in their “Transcriptions” series on Naïve (A/03 – nla; 3/07). Gottwald’s awesome technical demands put much of this music way beyond the scope of most choirs, and it is greatly to Ralph Allwood’s credit that the Rodolfus Choir, most of whom are students and all of whom are under 25, have not only tackled this music at all but have done so with considerable distinction. Most notable here are the choir’s impeccable tuning and Allwood’s sensitive balancing of a choral texture that, in places, moves into no fewer than 16 parts.

But considerations of age and experience shouldn’t come into the equation if you’re investing in a full-price CD to hear fully accomplished performances of this music. From both technical and interpretative standpoints, the Rodolfus Choir is eclipsed by Accentus.

That, though, is only part of the story. With a young choir whose members have spent weeks intensively polishing their craft, there is a collective enthusiasm for the music and for the art of choral singing which transcends matters of technique and interpretative depth. What this choir lack in polish (the top sopranos strain horribly in the first Wolf Lied, while there are very rough edges at the climax of Wagner’s second Tristan und Isolde study), they more than compensate with their desire to convey real passion for this music. They clearly relish the vocal harmonics in Ravel’s Soupir, they love the bell effects in Debussy’s Les Angélus, they positively luxuriate in the warm glow of Gottwald’s take on “O mio babbino caro” and they float around with enormous enthusiasm in the misty textures of Caplet’s Présentation. It may not be perfection but this is an undeniably enchanting disc.