Unicorn-Kanchana have released three discs devoted to the music of this 64-year-old Maltese composer; one of organ music, another containing the three piano concertos (9/94) and this one devoted to unaccompanied choral pieces written over the past 20 years.
Intense religious faith is the overriding impetus but there is an amazing variety of musical influences and styles. Indeed it is this very diversity of styles which could be regarded as something of a weakness; mixing musical aspects of mainstream Europe (Pacem in Maribus could have come from the pen of a lesser Schumann) and the East (the free chanting of soloists in Unum Deum has obvious origins in the muezzin's call to prayer) in an apparent attempt to create a distinctively Maltese musical language. There are tautly constructed rhythmic passages such as the vigorous opening of the ''Te Deum'', imperceptibly shifting harmonies much in the style of Gorecki's choral music (Celestial Voices is built up entirely around the wordless sustaining of chordal blocks), challenging vocal acrobatics in the peculiar Lumen nivis and occasional parlando treatment. One gets the impression that Camilleri resorts to parlando when, with large tracts of text still to wade through, his musical ideas have dried up. The result is a Missa brevis in which the Credo (where two overlapping voices rattle through successive lines of text simultaneously) lasts barely two-thirds the length of the Agnus Dei.
These parlando passages also reveal the only real weakness in Peter Broadbent's remarkably versatile Joyful Company of Singers. In other respects these are totally assured, stimulating performances which go a long way to justifying the extravagant claim on the booklet's cover that this is the ''Choir of the World'' (an honour awarded at the Llangollen Eisteddfod). Lovers of silly translations will enjoy the booklet's interpretation of ''Virginis uterum'' as ''the worm of the Virgin''.'