I remember my thoughts quite clearly the first time I heard Jonathan Dove’s music being performed as part of a big service at St Giles’ Cathedral. I was intrigued… it was weird yet wonderful. By the end I was hooked. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the opening moments of the new Hyperion disc were enough to tell me I haven’t changed my mind over the intervening years. Jonathan Dove is a hugely versatile composer and the sheer variety presented in the choral music and the challenging organ accompaniments is quite striking. At one moment I was moved to laughter, at the next almost to tears and all with a sense of awe-inspired mesmerisation. Here elements of MacMillan, Kodály and Bryars all gloriously combine to produce something remarkably unique. The Missa Brevis (a premičre recording) is a powerful work and the Kyrie opens a cappella with the voices moving slowly, spookily through various dissonant harmonies towards the central climax. The Gloria, as the text demands, presents a stark contrast and is a boisterous movement full of rhythmic distortions, joyous glissandi and brassy reeds in the organ part. This is some of the most imaginative writing on the disc; the performance is electrifying. There’s something particularly special and strangely hypnotic about the way that Dove combines rhythm and canon; this is evident in my two personal highlights: Run Shepherds run! (a lively performance complete with audience participation!) and Seek him that maketh the seven stars where Dove uses the voices to great dramatic effect in order to symbolise the pulsation of the stars. Here, the organ part with its high, whirring and endlessly undulating motifs represents the perpetual motion of the cosmos. Owens has clearly worked wonders with the Wells trebles and together with the lower voices they create some truly delectable moments. Sadly this is spoiled somewhat in occasional loud passages where the gents’ tone quality becomes unfocussed and slightly raucous. However, those looking for something different, dramatic yet uplifting should not be deterred. Dove’s music is truly in a galaxy of its own.

Reviewed by Wayne Weaver