Ruby Hughes / Manchester Collective - End of My Days / hybrid SACD

Soprano Ruby Hughes has a knack for innovative programming, but she may never have done as well as she does here on this selection of songs about death for voice and string quartet. Ralph Vaughan Williams is certainly unfamiliar territory for the contemporary-oriented Manchester Collective (the album came together because its violinist, Rakhi Singh, and Hughes were schoolmates), and rarely does he rub up against the likes of Caroline Shaw and Errollyn Wallen, yet everything hangs together perfectly as various moods toward death are explored.

The album title comes from a song in Wallen's set, Are You Worried About the Rising Cost of Funerals?, which, despite the grim text of the song (which is Wallen's own) and the humorous cycle title, has a kind of lightness. John Tavener's Akhmatova Songs are an uncommon example of secular music from this composer, and they are gorgeous. Hughes begins confidently, introducing herself a cappella with the Brian Elias song Meet Me in the Green Glen (to a poem by John Clare); she is followed by the string quartet by itself in Shaw's melancholy Valencia. Everything builds to a climax in the "Urlicht" movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in C minor, then recedes with Deborah Pritchard's Peace as a contemplative finale. Contemporary and traditional repertory works have rarely been as well woven together as they are here, and the album has a deep seriousness that will stay with the listener. The BIS label contributes excellent sound on an album that made classical best-seller charts in early 2024. ~ AllMusicGuide