Agnus Dei (Music Of Inner Harmony) CD Erato, 0630-14634-2, 1996, 12 Track  This album of choral classics, recorded in the beautiful acoustics of New College Chapel, Oxford, has been given the subtitle "World of Inner Harmony". If one were to be cynical, it suggests a stream of crystals'n'kaftans mood music. The surprise, however, is that though conductor Edward Higginbottom has created an unruffled surface of reflection and calm, he and his choir have also crafted a musically satisfying disc. Much of the variety is to be found in the significantly different styles on offer, from the slow build of Barber's Agnus Dei, through the restrained Gallic beauty of Faur's Cantique de Jean Racine, to the spare spirituality of Gorecki's Totus Tuus. There is also a sophisticated approach to the different acoustics needed for each piece. Faur's In Paradisum is handled with much more intimacy than, for example, the Kyrie of Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli, which is recorded at a far greater distance. The most risky item on the disc is John Cameron's arrangement of Elgar's "Nimrod" for eight-part choir, using the words of the Lux Aeterna: it teeters between kitsch and real power. In the end, as with most of the pieces here, the choir's extraordinary performance renders it hugely enjoyable. -- Warwick Thompson