The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge is marking two milestones this year: the 500th anniversary of the completion of its great chapel and the 400th anniversary of the posthumous publication of Giovanni Gabrieli’s magisterial music for St Mark’s, Venice in the Symphoniae Sacrae. By way of celebration, King’s has used the latest Dolby Atmos technology – favoured by Hollywood – to mix and release this disc, the first classical album to do so, apparently, and in CD/SACD hybrid and Pure Audio Blu-ray formats. The effect is to reproduce the fine acoustics of the chapel, with the gloriously rich and pungent brass of His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts enveloping the pristine choir in enhanced surround sound. It’s like taking a gondola on the Cam.
