One Bruckner motet is moving, one after another is immobilizing. ''All the air a solemn stillness holds'', and it's not very fresh air either: rather like standing for an hour in a gothic cathedral in front of some admittedly good piece of nineteenth-century stained glass. It would not be true to say that the motets are all adagio throughout, that they lack contrapuntal vigour and are devoid of rhythmic interest, but it would be natural to think so when listening to them collectively as here in recital. The colourful festival piece, Ecce sacerdos magnus, stands out among them not so much for its rich seven-part choral writing, its trombones and full organ accompaniment, as because it enunciates the opening words with a decisive rhythmic figure that stirs the air momentarily before the solemn stillness resettles. In this present recording the stirring seems to be happening some way off: distance and the haze of church echo prevent it from having the sharpness it has in the ten-year-old St John's, Cambridge recording (Decca D112D3, 11/78). Nor, in the other motets, does the relatively distanced sound of the choir emerge with an entirely homogeneous blend of the voice-parts. It is good to hear real resonant basses but they are sometimes too much in evidence and slightly too ripe in tone, where the tenors, by contrast, can become somewhat edgy. The upper voices sound well, and yet the rise to the high A and the falling phrases that follow in Os justi meditabitur don't have quite the magic worked by the boys of Lichfield Cathedral Choir (Alpha ACA505, 12/82). Among the pleasures here is Inveni David, one of the finest pieces, for men's voices and trombones, dramatic in its dark colouring and its modulations. Better known and particularly lovely, Tota pulchra es also has strikingly effective modulations and brings out much of what is most characteristic in the choir. The performances are directed with care and imagination, and the record is helpfully presented.'