A special BBC recording that captures Tippett's cantata on its debut, at Norwich Cathedral. It's a diverse piece, commissioned for the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, and is built around two saxophone quartets, the BBC Singers and, inevitably and inimitably, the force of nature that is Julie Tippetts. Tippetts also wrote the text, an allusive evocation of a monk's vision of approaching death.

Tippetts gyres and gambols from an ecclesiastic piety to the dirtiest of blues moans, all interspersed with a catalogue of yelps and wails that Maggie Nicols would relish. The use of saxophones could be compared to Jan Garbarek's ecclesiastic work: but this is more complex, more lithe, as one quartet holds themes and rhythmic shape while the jazz crew, notably Biscoe in rambunctious form, improvise boldly.

Tippett's writing for the admirable BBC Singers taps various choral traditions, one moment ethereal (think Holst's Neptune), then eerily earthy, holding long sustained notes that modulate into fearful Ligeti-like chords. The composer-conductor dedicated the piece to his father, and in turn this is a fittingly heavenly way of remembering the recently-passed Tippett.