Sometimes, this work encapsulates a genuine confrontation between the suggestions of traditional backgrounds and the composer's artistic individuality in an unresolved contest of matches and mismatches.

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The poem, written by Kerner, reflects on the fate of the poet/singer after death: even if no beloved weeps over his grave, the flowers will wet it with their dew, and the moon will gaze down over it.

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Music has been—and continues to be—an inseparable part of the Abbey's history, central to which has always been the Abbey Choir.

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The image of the Abbey's west towers, which graces the album cover, is from a 19th-century engraving. The towers were the last part of the Abbey to be completed in 1745, although there has been a 'west minster' church on the site for the best part of 1000 years.

It would have been all too easy for the Choir of Westminster Abbey to release yet another compilation of well-known favourites, but the carol collection recorded here is rather more varied. It's certainly too good to limit it to Christmas! Not that there's any lack of seasonal fare.

If the spirit (and sound) of Bartók is seldom far away, Lopes-Graça's own voice and aesthetic emerge strongly in Luís Duarte's recital of solo piano works, which includes three first recordings.

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This new recording remains a powerful reminder that music endures in even the darkest times, and displays as deep an affinity for Elgar's masterpiece as ever, especially under a conductor of Martyn Brabbins's Elgarian credentials.

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In 1917, while the First World War raged, the choir performed 'The Dream of Gerontius' under Sir Edward Elgar himself. 23 of its members were serving overseas at the time; two basses, Lewis Walker and Frank Rushfirth, never came home.

It coincides fortuitously with the release of a new film from Alan Bennett called 'The Choral', which highlights a fictional Yorkshire choir determined to keep music alive while its men are called to the front, in a story bearing remarkable similarities to the HCS's own story.

'Glosas & other piano works' is out 28th November.

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From the opening set of Glosas, 'glosses' on eleven traditional Portuguese songs; through five graceful Lullabies; to the concluding 'Album for the young pianist' which, beyond its obvious educational purpose, invites stylistic comparisons with Bartók's 'Mikrokosmos'.