Lauridsen: Lux aeterna (CD Review - The Seattle Times, 2005)

One of today's most performed choral composers, Northwest native Morten Lauridsen has won legions of international fans for the otherworldly beauty of his music. This new Hyperion CD has paired that music with superb interpreters: conductor Stephen Layton and his chorus Polyphony, plus the Britten Sinfonia (Pauline Lowbury, leader). The 1997 "Lux Aeterna," a luminous five-movement choral/orchestral requiem composed to texts about light, is joined here by the six "Madrigali" — virtuoso a cappella choral pieces — and three shorter works for chorus, including the hugely popular "O Magnum Mysterium." Layton's Polyphony is just the chorus to do this music justice, with clear, unfussy, adroit readings that rise to the rapturous.

Melinda Bargreen 

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