Finally the first recording of Westminster Cathedral Choir under Simon Johnson is available! "Lumen Christi", released by the Ad fontes label by Buckfast Abbey. I waited for it for quite some time now. On X Buckfast once posted a picture from a recording session. Now Spotify has it already and it's hard to listen not too much of it as it feels quite wrong to listen to Easter vigil music shortly before palm sunday. But if anybody has an opinion on the choir as it presents itself here I would be happy to hear it. There was so much debate after Cardinal Nichols decisions on the boarding school, Martin Bakers leave etc.
One of my first impressions was (but I really just listened to a few sections, not more than 5min in total) that the choir has not lost its majestic cathedral-sound although in the Gregorian pieces it might be that they have been more "together" before. Consonants, changes of vowels ... it's not completely uniform, isn't it? But I would have to compare more closely to older recordings.