Musical Opinion

The music of the Irish composer Rhona Clarke, born in Dublin in 1958, is nowhere near as well-known as it ought to be. She is a very gifted figure whose choral music, as this excellent CD demonstrates, is well written for voices, revealing a sensitivity to word-setting exceptional amongst living composers.

Rhona Clarke’s Requiem (effectively a Requiem Brevis) reveals a finely-sensitive response to the eternal texts; it is performed with genuine sensitivity and total musical understanding by this excellent Latvian choir under their conductor Maris Sirmais; the choir’s command of the Latin texts and other Christian verses and languages is total.

Rhona Clarke’s music on this disc covers a wide range of expression, and throughout – as may be inferred from my opening remarks – reveals a composer of rare gifts. Her command of choral writing is by no means hide-bound, as the various vocal textures she exhibits on this wide variety of settings demonstrate. I have found this CD – my first acquaintance with the music of this composer – to be fascinating and in many ways quite original, without stretching the natural technique of human voices, and in some cases – the Carols of Medieval Texts and the Requiem’s In Paradisum, and the children’s verse The Old Woman particularly – quite memorable. A most interesting and very worthwhile disc, well presented and finely recorded, as always with releases from this individual company.

(Five stars)

—James Palmer