Recordings
GRAYSTON IVES
Listen Sweet Dove
The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford
Bill Ives • Director
Bill Ives leads Magdalen College Choir in a premiere recording of some of his own liturgical music. Published under his given name, Grayston Ives, these works were composed between 1973 and 2000. The music ranges from delightfully airy to deep and contemplative to soaring and celebratory.
Reviews
Listen sweet dove is a gem. First-rate music and very accessible. The highlight is the ‘Missa Brevis’ – inventive, tuneful, harmonically vibrant – one of the finest works of its kind. Magdalen College Choir sings with appropriate sensitivity, fervent spirit and fluent mastery.
ClassicsToday.com
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The title track here is Ives’s hit — a setting of a George Herbert lyric sung with fresh beauty by the boy trebles and plaintive simplicity by the accompanying lower parts… Ives’s ear encompasses shimmering dissonance, jazzy close harmonies and festive pomp, particularly in the Canterbury Te Deum, which was commissioned for the enthronement of the previous primate. Ives also plays the chapel organ...
The Times, London
PAUL McCARTNEY