On what she has said is her last recording, Frederica von Stade applies her distinctive shine and tenderness to ‘Perhaps’, the aching song in Joseph Turrin’s And Crimson Roses Once Again Be Fair whose text (by Vera Brittain) includes the phrase that gives the First World War cantata – and this album of new choral works – its title. The esteemed mezzo-soprano has more than a passing connection to global conflagrations: her father was killed by a landmine at the end of the Second World War in April 1945, six weeks before her birth. She celebrated him in Richard Danielpour’s 1997 song-cycle Elegies, which was inspired by her father’s letters to her mother. Von Stade has stated that ‘Perhaps’ pays tribute to the heroism of her mother.

The album was recorded in December 2023, when von Stade was 78. She performs in only one of the 15 sections of Turrin’s cantata (2018), but her impassioned contribution is a crucial anchor towards the end of these harrowing narratives. The texts by nine poets who participated and/or died in the Great War are animated by vivid and lyrical vocal and instrumental writing, which the Musica Viva NY Choir and Orchestra treat with warmth, vitality and cohesion under music director Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez.

Although Turrin’s score takes up the majority of the disc, the other works weave their own spells. Richard Einhorn’s The Luminous Ground (2023) is an evocation of light sculptures by James Turrell in which hushed string lines, choral drones and quizzical piano fragments create a series of crystalline auras. The choristers simulate train sounds and sing in Spanish and English in Momotombo (2022), Gilda Lyons’s irresistible a cappella paean to the eponymous Nicaraguan volcano. Texts from the 16th century and Rubén Darío’s 1907 poem ‘Momotombo’ provide the impetus for five movements of vivacious rhythmic activity and reverent musings on the majesty and mystery of nature. The Musica Viva NY Choir bask in the technical challenges, sustaining long lines with finesse and brimming with colour and crisp ensemble in the livelier material.