The texts chosen for the numerous short works on this album are for the most part very familiar; the names of their nine composers less so.

While most have advanced musical training, including the managing director of Convivium Records, Adrian Green, who contributes three pieces, they are not primarily composers. Several work as teachers, singers or organists; some have started writing music in retirement from other professions. They are united in their love of music, philosophy and the Christian tradition, specifically expressed, according to the notes, in the teaching of Leon MacLaren, ‘a self-taught polymath whose search in pursuit of life’s deeper questions informed a distinctive understanding of sound, listening and creativity’.

MacLaren founded a Music School under the aegis of his School of Philosophy and Economic Science, and these settings are the product of explorations of the relationship between texts and music, the nature of silence in music (Dum medium silentium by John-Paul Bowman does this particularly effectively) and MacLaren’s thoughts on just intonation / ‘The Natural Octave’.

The pieces presented here are universally well crafted and are given scrupulously thoughtful performances by the young Phoenix Consort, most of whom, including their director Adam Whitmore, are graduates of Durham University.

The project and the ideas underlying it are interesting and the album forms a useful portfolio for 19 miniatures that could be usefully slotted into any liturgical choir’s music list.