I Wonder If They Know "Lord of the Dance"?

 

 CNA Staff, Dec 21, 2020 / 04:00 am MT (CNA).- When the singers of the Schola Cantorum of the London Oratory School gathered earlier this year to create a new album, they knew they had little margin for error.

A terrifying new virus was spreading across the world and there were rumors that Britain was about to enter a previously unheard-of state known as “nationwide lockdown.”

“We recorded our album in the final week before the first lockdown,” choir director Charles Cole recalled. “It was very much a race against time, because the political situation was developing quickly and we knew that a shutdown was imminent, so we were very fortunate indeed to get the sessions finished and complete the repertoire.”

It was against this menacing background that the choir at the London Catholic school produced a sublime recording of such works as “Surge, illuminare, Jerusalem” by Palestrina and “Videte miraculum” by Thomas Tallis. 

“Looking back, I think it is probably true to say that the general sense of widening panic only added to a sense of determination amongst the boys to get the album completed and to really make it special,” Cole told CNA in an email interview.

The completed album features a sequence of music for Christmas, Epiphany and Candlemas, the Feb. 2 feast also known as the Presentation of the Lord.