Choir of Clare College, Cambridge & Graham Ross - Reformation 1517-2017 (2017) [CD Rip]

This release lives up to its title, marking the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's famed theses-nailing session of 1517. The music covers much of the intervening period, beginning with the chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott by Martin Luther himself and using chorales from Luther's day (and later) to introduce works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Vaughan Williams that make use of them. The mixed-gender, young-adult choristers of the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, seem a bit ill at ease in Bach, more comfortable in Brahms and especially Mendelssohn, and positively radiant at Vaughan Williams' Lord, thou has been our refuge. The unstated agenda is perhaps even more effective than the stated one of marking the Lutheran legacy: the album is also about the inflection of the style of the Romantic composer by that legacy, especially in its Bachian form. Sample Brahms' little-heard Warum ist das Licht gegeben, Op. 74, No. 1, where Luther's chorale clarifies the texture as finale. The album is beautifully recorded in an unspecified venue, presumably the Clare College chapel. A recommended, offbeat choice for this significant occasion. -- James Manheim