In a Nobel Prize citation in 1990, the Mexican poet Octavio Paz’s Piedra de Sol (Sunstone) was deemed ‘to incorporate, interpret and reconstrue major existential questions, death, time, love and reality’. Joby Talbot has co-opted two-thirds of the poem’s 584 lines for this major choral setting, a single movement lasting 70 minutes. Within this broad span Talbot aims to explore ‘as wide a range of vocal textures as I could conceive’.

In the opening section, a gently lapping two-note figuration underlies Paz’s images of water and an endlessly meandering river. A sharp soprano line vaults skyward in section two, as rays of light and sun drench the rocks and beaches of Paz’s poetic imagination. Over half of Conspirare’s 25 singers step forward for the numerous solo break-outs Talbot uses. A plangent tenor hovers through section three’s galleries of sound, and a cavernous bass’s notes resound in the nocturnal dream-world of section nine. The marimba is another important ingredient in Talbot’s mix of sonorities, echoing gently through ‘the endless corridors of memory’ in section six. Its influence is unobtrusive, colouring harmonies, and acting as what Talbot calls ‘a pitch reference for the singers’.

Conspirare’s tuning is in fact excellent, and though ensemble occasionally wavers slightly, overall the choir sings splendidly. Particularly striking is how successfully conductor Craig Hella Johnson balances Talbot’s multiple layerings of texture, achieving clarity of contour in what could have been an amorphous jumble. The booklet has Sunstone’s full text (in Spanish) and translation included.