Tiffany Consort - O Magnum Mysterium - O Great Mystery (2004)

The specific combination of virtuoso a cappella choral music performed by an octet is the Olympic pole vault of vocal ensemble performance: pitches, like vaults, will be missed, but the whole thing is so thrilling to take in that you don't care. New York's Tiffany Consort is a small group of elite singers that has concertized in the fearsome Bach motets and the like; for this, its debut recording, they group chose a Christmas program containing works from various eras but centered on the Christmas Matins text "O magnum mysterium" -- "O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the newborn Lord lying in a manger." The program is organized like an old-fashioned college glee club concert, beginning with Renaissance music and then proceeding to contemporary works. The opening pieces by Palestrina and Victoria sound unusual sung by an octet since they're so familiar in perfectly blended choral versions, but the hyperconsonance of the Counter-Reformation polyphony exposes the blends of the voice pairs in fascinating ways. It is with the Quatre motets pour le temps de Noel of Francis Poulenc that things really get cooking; director Nicholas White has the singers adjust their vocal timbres so as to make a seamless blend between the almost music-hall-like lyrical melodies of these pieces and their more Stravinskian passages, and the result is an intense, luscious slice of French neo-Classicism. The album features a work by Nicholas White -- an attractive combination of tonal flavors that pairs well with the Poulenc but somehow lies too easily with the singers as compared to the rest of the music -- and concludes with a radiant O magnum mysterium by contemporary choral composer Morten Lauridsen. All in all it's quite a ride. This disc was nominated for a Grammy award in 2005.