CCMusic.com

Discover here a performance unlike any other of John Tavener's Ikon of Light, his landmark setting of the Prayer to the Holy Spirit by the great medieval mystic St. Symeon the New Theologian. Scored for choir and string trio, it is a radiant meditation on the Uncreated Light. Six Orthodox composers collaborated to create Heaven and Earth: A Song of Creation, written for Cappella Romana and it's unique musical capacities. Each section of this ecstatic setting in English of the Psalm of the Cosmos (103 lxx) seamlessly unites into a transcendent work Byzantine chant, lush Slavic harmonies, Renaissance counterpoint, Georgian-inspired polyphony, and more. Vocal ensemble Cappella Romana combines passion with scholarship in it's exploration of early and contemporary music of the Christian East and West. It's name refers to the medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which embraced Rome and Western Europe as well as the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople ("New Rome") and it's Slavic commonwealth. Heaven and Earth is Cappella Romana's 27th release.