Album: Howells / Whitacre / Pizzetti, Requiem, (Harmonia Mundi)

As Conspirare, the Texas-based Company of Voices and pianist Craig Hella Johnson challenge Britain's choral mavens in this graceful reading of Howells' Requiem, with its sublime third and fifth movements.

Pizzetti's Messa di Requiem is most interesting for its (accidental) similarities to Vaughan Williams' Mass in G minor. Less convincing are the Whitacre, Grantham, Paulus and Gilkyson motets, which fall into the luxury-dressed-as-simplicity category of modern American choral writing.