“In an ideal world,” says Gavin Bryars, “I would choose to write vocal music.” And though the Yorkshire minimalist only came to voices relatively late, his house style is an easy fit: those spacious progressions unfolding at what he describes as “a human rate”; that formula for evoking meaningful timelessness out of scrunchy new harmonies and tropes of old spirituality. The Fifth Century (2014) is a big piece for saxophone quartet and choir with words taken from the 17th-century English mystic Thomas Traherne. It’s sullen, cloying and a bit aimless; the saxes weave around like extra voices – think Garbarek and the Hilliards but with bigger forces – and the blended sound of The Crossing and Prism is creamy and pliable. This all-Bryars release also includes his Two Love Songs (2010), airy settings of Petrarch sonnets for a cappella female choir, sung with a grace so chilly it might freeze at any moment.
