Here is a disc commendable on at least three counts. First, the Finzi Singers are the best small spedalized choir I have heard since the heyday of Imogen Holst's Purcell Singers and are directed with outstanding musicianship by Paul Spicer. Second, the idea behind the record is imaginative: here are seven of the compositions commissioned since 1943 for St Matthew's Church, Northampton, a tradition established by that remarkable cleric Walter Hussey (later Dean of Chichester) and continued by his successors. Third, it contains a surpassingly beautiful performance of one of the most entrancing and lovable of Britten's religious works, the cantata Rejoice in the Lamb.
The setting of part of Christopher Smart's poem Jubilate Agno was Hussey's first commission in 1943. It is music to convert an atheist. The freshness of the melodies and the illustrative brilliance of the organ part (whether depicting a cat ''wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness'' or the squeaking of a mouse), and generally the matching of Smart's naive and penetrating poetry with perfect music, make this a very special Britten achievement. Andrew Lumsden's organ-playing is of exceptional quality.
The disc was made in St Alban's, Holborn where the acoustics presented problems which are described in technical detail in the booklet. The result is admirable: resonant, but full of atmosphere. There is a noble account of Finzi's Lo, the fug, final sacrif ce, and the latest commission, John Tavener's The Call, is hypnotically beautiful in its austerity. The choir's virtuosity is displayed in the Leighton item and again in Gordon Crosse's The Covenant of the Rainbow, to which the pianists Stephen Coombs and Christopher Scott make a telling contribution.'