Richard Rodney Bennett is probably better acquainted with The King’s Singers’ sound than anyone else. It’s telling, then, that of the three works on this disc written specially for them, Bennett’s is the only one which relies solely on their conventional singing ability. Sermons and Devotions uses an austere, unequivocally modern idiom, yet sung with such consummate artistry and pure vocal skills as it is here it all becomes remarkably accessible. Veljo Tormis’s contribution to their repertoire sets pagan fifths and peasantish gruntings against quasi-medieval chants – all rather blatant and unsubtle but utterly captivating none the less – while Geoffrey Poole’s Wymondham Chants employs yet more pseudo-medieval music, with high-pitched chattering vocalizations in the kind of aural spectacular which The King’s Singers have made their own.
Totus tuus has, over the decade of its existence, become something of a choral classic. Its rich, eight-part harmonies have a singularly warming effect. So it comes as something of a surprise to hear it not only reduced to six parts with a single male voice on each but sung by a group who are more usually associated with light-hearted, humorous music. Yet after the initial shock, the singers’ sublime musicianship wins the day and in the end Gorecki’s masterpiece loses none of its intensity and maybe has even gained an extra dimension. As, indeed, is the case of equally outstanding and emotionally charged accounts of music by Stravinsky and Tavener. It all serves to remind us that The King’s Singers, shorn of their usual vocal acrobatics, are still a musical group of the very highest order.'