In selecting this music, I tried to create not a narrative through the history of the genre, but a scattered set of highpoints in my own development as a composer; in brief, it’s a dozen pieces of music I love, some presented in multiple versions. The first two are 20th century pieces written for King’s College: the Howells (1892-1983) ‘Collegium Regale’ Magnificat (with a glorious conclusion) and Thomas Adès’s 1997 Fayrfax Carol. I thought it right to include an elegant and understated psalm chant before Byrd’s (1538-1623) penitential Infelix Ego. To give a small sense of my own musical lineage, we have the Agnus Dei from my Spiral Mass, which is, essentially, a love note to the settings of the same ordinary by Byrd and Stravinsky (1882-1971). Tye (1505-1573) and Taverner (1490-1545) anchor the 16th century here, with two recordings of Taverner’s Dum transisset Sabbatum, a motet for Easter Sunday. Weelkes’ (1576-1623) Gloria in Excelsis Deo has always struck me as muscularly relentless. Britten’s (1913-1976) Te Deum in C is upbeat, as the text suggests, but gives way, on occasion, to a quiet and delicate texture with a solo treble floating above it all. The two recordings of Like as the Hart each demonstrate, in their own way, Howells’s extraordinary gift for long, long lines; melodic and expressive, but deeply idiomatic for the voice. The last track is the fourth movement of To Stand In This House, written for the King's Singers and the Choir of King's College Cambridge. With a text from Zadie Smith, it offers a musical metaphor for ways of resisting oppression and brutality.