Claudio Dall’Albero - Polyphonia in Excelsis

The Guardian 80

Choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge/Skinner
(Resonus)

This is a rather startling disc. The music is firmly rooted in the tradition of Gregorian chant and the great Italian polyphonists but flows from the pen of a 21st-century Roman. Claudio Dall’Albero spent decades in the Vatican, where his studies of contrapuntal technique gave rise to new sacred music, given life here by the mellifluous choir of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge. Much of the work, whether for choir or organ solo, is carefully crafted within a modal framework. In medio ecclesiae, for instance, is built in the Phrygian mode, its five parts interweaving polyphonically with attractive dissonances, while Oratio in Festo S Caroli employs the Lydian to interesting effect. David Skinner leads his young singers skilfully through these testing yet pleasing pieces that are both refreshingly new and comfortingly familiar.