Featured Album September 2026: The Sixteen "Lead, Kindly Light"

Over the years, our Featured Albums have included recordings by many of the most prominent artists within the field of early music. Perhaps surprisingly, however, we have never featured an album by celebrated British choral ensemble The Sixteen. We thought we should put that right by introducing their most recent recording, which brings together sacred polyphonic vocal works from the Spanish Renaissance, along with selected complimentary contemporary works. Read on to find out more about why we enjoy 'Lead, Kindly Light'...

Lead, Kindly Light
The Sixteen

OUR FEATURED ALBUM FOR SEPTEMBER 2026

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From the artist's press release:

Spain’s Siglo de Oro, the Age of Gold, gave rise to some of the greatest sacred choral music of the Renaissance. Lead, Kindly Light is devoted to the music of two outstanding Spanish composers exploring majestic works by Cristóbal de Morales, famed throughout Europe and in the New World, and the exquisite polyphony of Sebastián de Vivanco, whose intricately crafted counterpoint adorned services at the cathedrals of Ávila and Salamanca during the late 1500s.

Contrasting and complementing these 16th-century masterpieces are spellbinding settings of words by Saint John Henry Newman: Sir James MacMillan’s Nothing in vain for soloists and double choir and the world premiere of Kerensa Briggs’ Lead, kindly light, specially commissioned for this album and The Sixteen’s 2026 UK Choral Pilgrimage.

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Why The Early Music Shop loves "Lead, Kindly Light":

For many years now, The Sixteen has undertaken an annual ‘choral pilgrimage’ around the UK, performing the same themed programme in the nation’s historic cathedrals, abbeys and churches. Hugely popular, these concerts invite audiences to share in the group’s work. The 2026 pilgrimage of which this is the accompanying recording, is entitled ‘Lead, Kindly Light’ (from the text by Cardinal Newman of Dream of Gerontius fame). It embraces some of the greatest sacred music from Renaissance Spain’s Golden Age – by Cristóbal de Morales and Sebastián de Vivanco, both of whom were roughly contemporary with Tallis and Byrd – in juxtaposition with contemporary settings by Kerensa Briggs and Sir James Macmillan. The result is 75 minutes of simply gorgeous devotional vocal music.

In his day, Morales was celebrated through Europe and the New World. He took advantage of the opportunity to travel abroad, including a decade as a singer at the Sistine Chapel, where he knew Palestrina. On the evidence of the Morales’ items on this CD, The Sixteen especially enjoy the full dramatic range of Morales’s Lamentabatur Jacob, a five-part motet for the Feast of the Assumption, while their approach to his Exaltata est sancta Dei Genitrix for six voice exudes a generous warmth of tone.

There are four motets and his Magnificat octavi toni by Vivanco included on the CD. Whereas Morales travelled, Vivanco spent his whole life in Spain, in the service of the cathedrals of Ávila and Salamanca in the late 1500s. His vocal textures are more varied than those of his compatriot, nowhere more so than in the Magnificat in which Vivanco’s swapping around of plainsong and polyphony is deeply affective. The range of the 9-part motet Caritas Pater est is striking for some extraordinary rumbling low bass pitches.

Both Kerensa Briggs’s Lead, Kindly Light and Macmillan’s Nothing in vain provide palate-cleansers to the Spanish Renaissance music. Briggs’s setting includes a use of the English folk song ‘Dives and Lazarus’, very familiar via Vaughan Williams’s set of variations. Macmillan is something of a house speciality for these forces, having given many premieres of the Scotsman’s music. His Nothing in vain is also a Newman setting, for double choir; it includes a standout solo in one of its sections.

As might be expected from these highly experienced musicians, Christophers and his singers display impeccable intonation, blend and characterful, never bland, tone, throughout, while always taking care to present the meaning of the text through flawless diction. Warmly recommended!

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Lead, Kindly Light is available from The Early Music Shop online or in-store!

Click here to order now!

Click below to watch a short trailer for the 'Choral Pilgrimage 2026', for which 'Lead, Kindly Light' is the accompanying album: