Lauridsen: Lux Aeterna, etc. / Salamunovich, Los Angeles Master Chorale
Modern choral music for amateur singers may be America's biggest musical underground. That's the only explanation of why Grammy-nominated composer Morten Lauridsen can claim that his works are some of the most often-performed new pieces in years, although few among the East Coast intelligentsia have ever heard of him. Like the similarly popularJohn Rutter, Lauridsen inhabits an extremely conservative style directed simply and single-mindedly at showing off the beauty of choral singing while it illustrates inspiring texts. Unlike many of his fellow neo-Romantic conservatives, Lauridsen displays a brand of conservatism that is completely convincing and sincere. His music also has range, from the spellbindingly rapturousLux aeternato his playful settings of Rilke's poems about the beauty and thorniness of roses inLes chansons des roses. There is, moreover, a Coplandesque streak heard in hisMid-Winter Songs, which are settings of poems by Robert Graves. Though the Los Angeles Master Chorale has a suitably red-blooded sound, the music would be better served with more precise diction.--David Patrick Stearns