Gavin Bryars: The Fifth Century

The music of English composer Gavin Bryars has long managed the distinction of being both "accessible and defiantly personal" (The New York Times). This is the first ECM album from Bryars in decades which includes the seven-part title work: a slowly evolving - yet immediately involving - setting of words by 17th-century English mystic Thomas Traherne performed by the spectacular choir and saxophone quartet, and Two Love Songs, luminous a cappella settings of Petrarch for The Crossing's women.