By Sarah Bryan Miller
Post-Dispatch Classical Music Critic
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New classical music

The tune "Divinum Mysterium" (known in English as "Of the Father's Love Begotten") started life as a medieval setting of the Sanctus; the words are by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (348-413). Daniel Kellogg takes it and makes it into a modern account of the creation. In eighth blackbird's "Beginnings" (Cedille CDR 90000 076), it is a beautiful, moving tour de force for the chamber sextet, which commissioned the piece. Flutist Molly Alicia Barth, clarinetist Michael J. Maccaferri, violinist Matt Albert, cellist Nicholas Photinos, percussionist Matthew Duvall and pianist Lisa Kaplan are briefly joined by the male chorus Chanticleer. (The acknowledgements include a thank-you to "Chanticleer for saving our fans from having to listen to us sing.")

The group paired it with George Crumb's 1971 "Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) for Three Masked Players." Written for electric flute, electric cello and electric piano, its movements have names like "Proterozoic" and "Cenozoic," and ends with a gorgeous "Sea-Nocturne (. . . for the end of time)." It's an interesting, thought-provoking pairing. The disc also has terrific cover art, in the tradition of the old Westminster Gold LPs.

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