Gramophone Magazine
May 2022
Editor's Choice

Ruby Hughes (soprano), Joshua Simões the Choir of King’s College, London, Joseph Fort

Nesbit: Mass
Nesbit: Evening Psalms
Nesbit: Fanfares and Rounds
Nesbit: The King's Service

As a young composer, Edward Nesbit was drawn to the rich complexities of contemporary instrumental music; little more than a decade later, he has found himself returning to the inheritance of his early youth as a chorister: the texts of mass, psalms and canticles, and the long centuries of the Anglican choral tradition.

Not that there is anything traditional about Nesbit’s music, which synthesises these two heritages into a sound world that is accessible, full of references yet always recognisably its own voice.

Joseph Fort – his colleague at King’s College London – and organist Joshua Simões and the King’s choir rise to the challenges expertly, while multi-award-winning soprano Ruby Hughes gives the lead in the clarion textures of Nesbit’s Mass.