Apollo5 is not the first ensemble to base a program around a geographical journey, yet this selection of works suggested by the pilgrim journey from Canterbury to Rome on the ancient Via Francigena provides an engaging miscellany that plays to their vocal strengths.

Evoking the merrie olde England the pilgrims are leaving behind, the singers begin with Morley’s Arise, awake, bringing to it a buoyant crispness and clarity. These qualities are deliberately blurred in Piers Connor Kennedy’s humorous take on Weelkes’ Strike it up, tabor, the reimagining of a boozy farewell before setting sail. By contrast, White’s Christe qui lux es et dies and Tallis’s Euge caeli porta recall the spiritual reasons for the journey.

A bracket dealing with voyaging begins with Christopher Moore’s skilful arrangement of Vaughan Williams’ evergreen Whither must I wander with the melody mostly given to the tenor. While this is perhaps not the most heart-tugging rendition, the singers still produce a mellifluous tone amidst some carefully controlled flexibility. 

Shruti Rajaseker’s Who has seen the wind?, especially commissioned for this album, is an ear-catching setting of Christina Rossetti. Unified by a falling motive, the music hauntingly captures the elusive subject. Also capturing the mood of the lyrics is Penelope Appleyard’s take on the folk melody of Row On, a text discovered on a 19th-century Nantucket whaling ship, later set to music by Tim Laycock. The joyful determination to “row on another day” could well set up an earworm for the listener.

As the pilgrims set foot on French soil during springtime, the program serves up some widely varied meditations on the search for renewal. Saint-Saëns’ Les fleurs et les arbres expresses uncomplicated wonderment in the realm of nature as does the florid exultation of Claude Le Jeune’s Revecy venir de printemps. In between comes Francis Pott’s specially commissioned Méditation (a setting from 16th-century poet Joachim de Bellay) conveying a more sombre mood while seeming to reference other harmonic dialects within his own unique language.

Conjuring up the splendour of the Eternal City, we hear excerpts from Palestrina’s Missa Regina Caeli, as well as works from other Roman residents, Orlando di Lasso and Vincente Lusitano. Using admirable control, the singers unfurl the Palestrina in long, imposing arcs. They include both a sacred and secular example of di Lasso’s art. Quem dicunt homines contains Christ’s declaration that Peter is the rock on which he will build the church. Although not as brilliant as Palestrina’s famous setting, this is still worth knowing. Solo e pensoso is a masterly treatment of a Petrarch sonnet in which the poet-philosopher ponders the path of life.

This musical pilgrimage ends with a Regina caeli by Vincente Lusitano, a most interesting character. Born in Portugal and believed to be of mixed race, he became a Catholic priest and settled in Rome. Apart from composing and writing several technical treatises, the last we hear of Lusitano is that he married and converted to Protestantism (of the Calvinist variety, no less). His motet, with motives derived from the text’s plainchant melody, aptly celebrates Mary’s joy at the resurrection of her son.

Now well into the second decade of its existence, Apollo5 continues to provide choral afficionados with plenty of joyous, insightful singing. This, their eighth disc, is no exception. 

Listen on Apple Music.

Title: Crossings
Works: Music by Morely, Vaughan Williams, Palestrina et al.
Performers: Apollo5
Label: Voces8 Recordings VCM176
★★★★