Steven Schwartz wrote:

>In all, I recommend this disc mainly for the repertory.

Sorry Steve, but it is the repertoire that would cause me to run screaming
from the hall.  Thomson's choral music, although pretty for about a bar
and a half, is fraught with simply horrible and awkward text settings;
dull, lifeless, endless strings of quarter notes ad nauseaum and an
incessant stream of parallel 6ths such to cause insulin shock from the
most hearty pancreas.  It's simply turgid music and I hope I never have to
suffer through that dreadful St.  Luke candy cane again.  (I was coerced
into singing Gabriel twice by a pastor that I loved dearly as a personal
favor!) The only thing more torturous than the Nativity is the Testament of
Freedom, the hearing of which has upon more than one occasion sent me into
paroxisms.

Kevin Sutton