To some, John Rutter is an heir to the English musical tradition, an avatar of the accessible and idealistic spirit of Vaughan Williams. To others, he's the Thomas Kinkade of classical music, a shamelessly self-congratulatory purveyor of the feelgood and the trite. If you haven't made up your mind, The John Rutter Collection offers a fine, single-disc sampling of the composer's work, beautifully realized in performances conducted by Rutter himself. Though Rutter has written pieces of various sizes and in various forms, it is his cheerful short choral pieces -- carols and anthems, either a cappella or accompanied -- that have found their way into the repertoires of American choirs great and small. Works like the Shepherd's Pipe Carol (1966) and the anthem Behold, the Tabernacle of God (1981) are well represented here, and there are generous excerpts of Rutter's widely performed Magnificat and Requiem. All the performances are by the composer's handpicked Cambridge Singers, who help Rutter provide a counterexample to the classical-music truism that composers make poor interpreters of their own works. The various influences present in Rutter's work are nicely smoothed into a unified whole here -- perhaps the best way to look at Rutter is to regard him as at heart the omnivorous and utilitarian composer of music for television that he once in fact was -- and the result is an ideal gift item from or to anyone interested in Rutter's music. ~ James Manheim, All Music Guide
