Search - Sidney Campbell, Thomas Armstrong, Francis Jackson :: A Canterbury Celebration

Canterbury Cathedral Choir and Allan Wicks

R. P. Astridge | Liverpool, UK | 02/22/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This recording was really the great Allan Wicks' swansong, made before he retired from Canterbury Cathedral. The Choir, as ever, are spot on, diction is totally perfect, the tone not stuffy, but clear and rather continental. They were then, and still remain now, a tribute to what can be achieved away from the hooting falsetto style tone we have had to suffer for far too long. Canterbury deservedly ranks among our very finest world Choirs.The Organ solos are played by Allan Wicks, and the Ridout is a piece to really show how magnificent the Organ really is. If that is not enough to convince, the Cocker is given excellent treatment, with a glorious crescendo, and the Solo Tuba on fine speech. Here is one who knows this grand Father Willis organ very well indeed. The recording is also excellent, the very resonant nave acoustic has been caught accurately, and everything sounds as it should. Wicks has long retired from Canterbury and has been replaced by the equally gifted David Flood, but this CD shows clearly what a cultured musician and Choirmaster Wicks was, and any lover of the English choral Tradition will want this in their library."