Rhona Clarke: Sempiternam choral music review – certain gestures a little cliched

This new collection of ten of Rhona Clarke’s choral works covers repertoire from 1991 to 2020. The largest piece is the Requiem of 2020 with just four movements – Introit, Lux Aeterna, Pie Jesu and In Paradisum. It opens in the haunting darkness of deep male voices and, while it’s in many ways the album’s gravest-sounding piece, it’s also the one with the most potent sense of balm. The selection takes the listener through moments of celebration – responses to words like Gloria or Alleluia – in a varied sound world where dissonances are more likely to be delicate than harsh and, in the same spirit, low, round resonances are called upon to anchor angular high soprano lines. Clarke is fond of graduated spills of sound, that sometimes swell or contract like murmurations of starlings, or swirl with more focused energy towards a clear destination. Even in the fine performances by Maris Sirmais and his Latvian singers, these particular gestures can seem a little cliched. Better are the few moments of shock – the theatrical foot stomping that sets the tone for the expression of bereavement in Ave atque vale of 2017 – and the writing is effective too when staying close to tradition in the genuinely carol-like Three Carols on Medieval Texts of 2014.