New York Polyphony are a quartet of singers; Geoffrey Williams – counter-tenor, Steven Caldicott Wilson and Andrew Fuchs – tenors and Craig Phillips – bass.  On Sky of My Heart they mostly sing unaccompanied but are joined by the LeStrange Viols (Loren Ludwig and John Mark Rozendaal – treble viol, Kivie Cahn-Lipman – tenor viol, Zoe Weiss and Douglas Kelley – bass viol).

The album is a mix of Renaissance and contemporary pieces; most of the latter composed for NYP.  They are very good singers with terrific control and a very clean largely vibrato free sound that works well for most of the music on the disk.  Some of the material is religious; William Byrd’s setting of Ecce quam bonum, Becky McGlade’s setting of Prudentius’ Of the Father’s Love Begotten and Ivan Moody’s settings of three excerpts from the Song of Songs.  All of these are unaccompanied in a churchy sort of style.

Some of the secular contemporary music gets a similar treatment.  Notable examples include Akemi Naito’s settings of Saigyō’s Tsuki no Waka (Six Poems for the Moon) and Paul Moravec’s settings of two Walt Whitman poems.  But just as it’s maybe beginning to feel that all this pretty a cappella singing is a bit too much of a good thing along comes Nico Muhly’s My Days which is a longish (16 minutes) and very different piece.  The text mixes up fragments of two psalms with Orlando Gibbons’ autopsy report and the viols come into play.  The music is much more textured with some atonality and a range of singing styles including some much more dramatic/declamatory sections.  At times it’s almost chaotic which is a welcome break from what has come before.  It’s a really interesting piece.  The viols also get a workout on William Byrd’s Agnus Dei and the very beautiful The Silver Swan by the previously autopsied Mr. Gibbons.  All in all there is about 65 minutes of music.

The recording was made in October 2023 at Bristol Chapel, Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey and it’s excellent in every way.  The actual release is hybrid SACD though I listened to a pre-release 96kHz/24 bit version.  From the notes I suspect that’s essentially the stereo hi-res track on the SACD.  There’s a booklet with texts and translations and very good notes.

This is a really interesting album that shows quite a wide range of sound worlds for four voices and some viols!

Catalogue information: BIS 2719.