Angel of Peace: The Sixteen’s 25th Choral Pilgrimage moves from the 12th century to the present day but it is early Tudor polyphony that stays in the memory

Angel of Peace: Hildegard of Bingen,  Arvo Pärt, Will Todd, Anna Clyne, John Taverner; The Sixteen, Harry Christophers, Sarah Sexton; Church of St Martin in the Fields
Reviewed 5 September 2025

The Sixteen’s 25th Choral Pilgrimage mixes the contemporary with music from the 12th century, along with two great Marian antiphons that celebrate the florid music of the early Tudor church

The Sixteen‘s 2025 Choral Pilgrimage, Angel of Peace, has been wending its way around the country since they debuted the programme at Croydon Minster on 17 March. There will be 23 performances in all, ending on 4 October at Chichester Cathedral, along with eight associated choral workshops. Earlier this year I chatted to Harry Christophers about his approach to the Choral Pilgrimage and this year’s programme. Read more in my interview, ‘Everyone in the group feels strongly it’.

On Friday 5 September 2025 we caught Harry Christophers and The Sixteen in Angel of Peace at St Martin-in-the-Fields. The programme combines Hildegard of Bingen’s Ave, Generosa, John Taverner’s Gaude plurimum and O splendor gloriae, and Arvo Pärt‘s Tribute to Caesar, Da pacem Domine and Magnificat, with two contemporary pieces for choir and violin (Sarah Sexton), Will Todd‘s I shall be an angel of peace (from 2021) and Anna Clyne‘s Orbits which was a new commission by The Sixteen.

Each half began with verses from Hildegard of Bingen’s Ave, Generosa and ended with one of John Taverner’s large-scale antiphons. Will Todd and Anna Clyne’s pieces formed the centrepiece of each half, paired with Arvo Pärt.

Harry Christophers and his singers’ approach to Hildegard of Bingen’s hymn Ave generosa was dignified, preserving the expressive simplicity and directness of the music. Verses sung by the women of the choir over a violin drone alternated with verses sung by solo soprano with drone from alto voices. The results had a strong presence, with a great sense of expressive line. This was not aethereal Hildegard of Bingen but reflected the sibyl of the Rhine’s dynamic personality.

Both of John Taverner’s works in the programme were large-scale devotional pieces, Marian antiphons that would have been sung after Compline rather than during the liturgy. Gaude plurimum, probably dating from the early part of the reign of King Henry VIII, glories in the florid writing and came in at around 12 minutes long. Chances to hear works this complex and this size are relatively rare and The Sixteen are to be complimented on their daring. And judging by the substantial house (the church looked full) they are carrying their audience with them.

For much of Gaude plurimum, Taverner used small groups of voices and The Sixteen’s strong sense of expressive line gave the music an interesting mix of richness and austerity. Only in verse two did Taverner release the full glory of the whole choir, creating a rich tapestry of music but in subsequent tutti moments  I loved the lovely sprung detail in individual lines. For the final three verses Taverner seems to re-traverse existing material, but of course things are not the same. I particularly noted here the ecstatic quality that the singers brought to the melismatic passages. Early Tudor composers were very big on melisma, with words taking a secondary place, but during Taverner’s lifetime the approach changed and in his music you can hear that progression. Even a work like Gaude plurimumi has rather more syllables per page than, say, Robert Fayrfax. The ending, when it came rose to a gloriously rich tapestry of polyphony.

Taverner’s O splendor gloriae probably dates from later, from the 1530s and has an element of pragmatism in that the writing is still elaborate but the floridness is tempered by a distinct approach to the words. Christophers took the piece at quite a flowing tempo and the singers mixed warmth and strength in their individual lines. The first tutti, to the word ‘Salve’ had a real warmth to it, and subsequent passages were lively with some vigour and a great attention to detail in individual lines. Yet Christophers never lost sight of the larger structure and we led on to a positively rapturous conclusion.

We had three works by Arvo Pärt, all relatively familiar and part of The Sixteen’s overall repertoire, forming a neat 90th birthday tribute. In the first half came his English setting of A Tribute to Caesar, in a steady, controlled performance which highlighted the way Pärt creates expressive changes via the colorations of different choral textures, creating a remarkable expressive range on a relatively small canvas. A similar approach could be seen with Da Pacem Domine, the first Arvo Pärt work in the second half where Pärt uses his tintinnabuli technique to create what is essentially a hocket. Well balanced and considered, the singers made these individual notes coalesce into a greater whole. The final Pärt work was his Latin Magnificat, larger in scale yet always with a sense of building from smaller blocks of colour. There was a controlled intensity to the singing here, along with a naturalness in the placing of the individual blocks of colour. The climaxes, when they came, had a focused intensity, the whole always centred and more down to earth than aethereal.

Will Todd’s setting of John Henry Newman, I shall be an angel of peace for choir and solo violin was commissioned in 2021 by the Genesis Foundation for The Sixteen. It began with the lyric melancholy of the solo violin, Sarah Sexton, accompanied by wordless choir. When Todd brought in the words he combined dense, rich choral harmonies with a solo violin line weaving its way in and out. The language here was unashamed in its rich romanticism, yet with a touching use of harmony. Even when the music moved way from quiet poise into something more lively, neither voices nor violin overshadowed the other. Todd has created a poised and expressive combination of the two.

Anna Clyne’s Orbits was commissioned by The Sixteen specifically to partner Will Todd’s piece. Clyne sets words by Rilke in an English translation by Robert Bly. Not exactly religious, the lines include ‘I am circling around God’. The work is in striking contrast to Todd’s piece which worked well in the context of this programme, giving each half a different focus.

Clyne began with vigorous, almost athletic violin writing that had a distinctly folk-inspired feel to it, and this athletic, folk-like feeling continued in the rather appealing choral textures, all; striding lines and engaging textures. There were moments when the violin came to the fore, but it was very much a work for chorus and violin. Clyne repeated sections of the words, creating her own structure which always returned to those engaging opening bars. The work closed with appealing vigour and you feel that this is a work that should have a significant popularity.

Each time The Sixteen presents a Choral Pilgrimage you wonder whether Harry Christophers will have to go back over earlier ground, but somehow he never quite does. This programme was in some ways the mixture as before, yet made up of different elements which brought a new cast to the evening. Both Will Todd and Anna Clyne’s works were approachable, yet each certainly had the strength and confidence to form the focus of each half of the evening. Yet what stayed in the memory was the gloriously florid, large-scale Taverner pieces. They worked well enough in the 18th century splendour of St Martin in the Fields but I longed to hear them in real Gothic atmosphere. 

PROGRAMME

Hildegard of Bingen Ave, Generosa
Arvo Pärt Tribute to Caesar
Will Todd I shall be an angel of peace
John Taverner Gaude plurimum
Hildegard of Bingen Ave, Generosa
Arvo Pärt Da pacem Domine
Anna Clyne Orbits
Arvo Pärt Magnificat
John Taverner O splendor gloriae