Born in Michigan in 1970‚ Garrett Fisher has a seemingly limitless capacity to absorb multi­cultural influences. He points to his first hearing of the muezzin’s call to prayer (he was a child of six holidaying in Istanbul) as a defining moment in his musical outlook‚ although quite what relevance this aspect of Muslim culture‚ not to mention Chinese opera‚ Japanese Noh theatre‚ Indian instrumental music and the words of a 13th­century French female troubadour‚ have to the execution of the 15th­century English statesman Sir Thomas More escapes me. But the pages of Gramophone are probably not the best forum to question a composer’s motives. The pages of Gramophone‚ however‚ are the forum to discuss the quality of a recorded performance and its sound. In these areas this disc is a complete‚ unquestioned success. Hypnotic‚ magical‚ enchanting and moving‚ The Passion of St Thomas More relies on just seven musicians to sustain its hour’s worth of intense drama‚ but‚ not least because of the restful omnipresence of the Indian harmonium‚ the effect is of total tranquillity and ease. More than that‚ the occasional plaintive calls from the cor anglais (here is evidence of that muezzin’s influence) and the delicate tabla playing‚ especially at the end of Act 1‚ create a more powerful musical image of a man willingly sacrificing his life for his unshakeable religious convictions than could be achieved with ten times the number of musicians. There are touches of pure dramatic genius‚ not least the confrontation between the king and an angel‚ the king’s angry rantings devastatingly countered by the angel’s chanting of the ancient ‘adoro te’. Christina Högman is the ethereal angel here‚ her voice almost awesomely angelic. Olle Persson‚ sounding lean and hungry‚ sheds an entirely new light on the familiarly rotund character of Henry VIII. Perhaps Anna Vinten­Johansen has a little too much aura of a folk singer about her to make the most convincing Thomas More‚ but she does produce one of the opera’s most entrancing effects as‚ passing up to Heaven‚ she sings‚ somewhat incongruously‚ a traditional Norwegian folksong.