Ben Parry is among the composers jockeying to succeed the popular John Rutter, and this release offers a good opportunity to sample his music. His settings of poetry, some of it classic and some of by regular collaborator Garth Bardsley, especially resemble Rutter, with tuneful, text-centered settings that are easy on the ears. To this base, Parry adds pleasing settings of familiar folk tunes and some sacred works of the sort that choirs like to put in the first part of their recitals. The music, again like that of Rutter, works well with young singers, unsurprising given Parry's background as director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain; the choristers here, the Choir of Royal Holloway under Rupert Gough, are only slightly older than those with whom Parry regularly works, and the sound is relaxed and appealing. The program hangs together only loosely; the title The Hours seems to refer in a general way to day and year parts, not to any liturgical function. Enjoyable especially for choral singers and those who love them, this album has an appeal that, again like Rutter's music, seems likely to jump the Atlantic in its appeal.
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