BO HANSSON (b.1950): Som när handen, Salve Regina, Then I heard the singing, For as the rain, The place amongst the trees, Missa brevis, Lighten mine eyes, Endless border.

Description: A composer with a completely accessible idiom yet an individual and original voice, Hansson came relatively late to contemporary choral music, after establishing a career in other musical fields. The vocabulary of these pieces is tonal, though frequently of an ambiguous kind, lacking obvious progressions and resolutions. Nonetheless, richly consonant chordal writing predominates, with only brief excursions into more dissonant counterpoint for dramatic effect, as in some sections of the striking Mass, in which the organ often appears as a disruptive counter-argument to the choral material, elaborating it and commenting on it. A flavor of bitonal pungency is a feature of the composer's language, again strongly felt in the Missa brevis and the contemporaneous For as the Rain. Hansson's approach to word-setting is sometimes unusual, emphasizing the sonorous potential of individual syllables or short phrases to build powerful and intriguing textures. Norwegian-English and English texts. William Baldry (organ), Choir of Royal Holloway; Rupert Gough.