Papagena: Tomorrow is Today: Songs of love, beauty and the passing of time
SOMM Recordings

It's been six years since the release of Papagena's third album Hush!, but the UK-based vocal quintet—sopranos Elizabeth Drury, Imogen Ram-Prasad, and Suzzie Vango, mezzo-soprano Shivani Rattan, and alto Sarah Tenant-Flowers—used the time wisely to craft an immensely satisfying fourth, the recording marked by the splendour of their voices but also the diversity of the material. There's James MacMillan, Sandy Denny, Caroline Shaw, and Kate Bush but also Hildegard of Bingen, Henry Purcell, and Claudio Monteverdi, and Tomorrow is Today also includes Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Yoruban traditionals. It is, in a word, eclectic.

As per the subtitle, its pieces explore love (from romantic longing and courtship to sexual desire), beauty (human, divine, and natural), time, and, relatedly, mortality. In Papagena's smart sequencing, one set of songs explores a theme before the next addresses another. For every listener, certain pieces will resonate more than others, even if Tomorrow is Today is strong from start to finish. Adding to the release's value, six of its eighteen selections are world premiere recordings and three appear in their first commercial release. The singers' contributions to the project, recorded at St Michael and All Angels in Oxford during July 2025, extend in some cases beyond performance: three arrangements are by Tenant-Flowers, two by Vango, another the group, and the album also includes a piece written by Rattan.

Just as the vocal ensemble Skylark opened its recent Songbird release with “The Gallant Weaver,” so too does Papagena. If theirs is a tad less sublime, it's nevertheless a more-than-credible rendering of James MacMillan's poignant setting of Robert Burns' text; certainly Papagena's angelic voices are a wondrous match for MacMillan's soul-stirring music. From his 1603-published Fourth Book of Madrigals, Monteverdi's “Sì Ch'io Vorrei Morire” surprises more for its graphic meditation on physical passion (“Ah dear and sweet tongue / Give me so much nectar / That I expire from the sweetness in your breast!”) than for its also-arresting flirtations with chromaticism and dissonance—musical tension fittingly explored, given the subject matter. Moments of stirring beauty mark commanding performances of “Ther is no rose,” from the fifteenth-century English Trinity Carol Roll, and Papagena's freely harmonized arrangement of Hildegard of Bingen's “O cruor sanguinis.” Written in the style of an Italian madrigal, "Dolce Cantavi" shows the versatile Shaw's as comfortable composing within that idiom as Papagena is singing it.

Tenant-Flowers gravitated to the traditional Ukrainian folk song “Oy khodyt son” in part because of the discord between the domestic serenity described in the song and the devastation with which the Ukrainian people are contending. Papagena honours the Yoruban tradition with a treatment of “Canto a Eleggua" that doesn't attempt to replicate the sound of Yoruban singers but instead respectfully adapts the harmonic style the song demands. The haunting harmonies of the traditional Bulgarian folk song “Kaval Sviri” call to mind 1987's Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, with Papagena's authentic treatment bolstered by body percussion. The group's as faithful to the spirit of Purcell for the calming “Music for a while,” originating from music he wrote for John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee's 1692 play Oedipus.

True to its nature as an Indian celebration song, Rattan's enticing “Holi” rouses the spirit with its ecstatic vocal tapestry and melismatic flourishes; as infectious is “Welcome somer” by Canadian composer Don Macdonald, which animates Chaucer's text with rhythmic drive. Papagena's not averse to covering modern pop material (see its earlier treatment of Katy Perry's “Firework”) and upholds that tradition with powerful renderings of Bush's childbirth meditation “This Woman's Work” and the folk classic “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” by Fairport Convention's Sandy Denny. An album highlight is the quintet's heartfelt rendition of “I courted a sailor” by English folk singer-songwriter Kate Rusby, the lilting song a lass's plaintive expression of longing for her oft-away love. If there's a piece that showcases the vocal dexterity of the group, it's the title song Papagena commissioned from Janet Wheeler and whose text by the composer's daughter Sarah Cattley includes references to birdsong and new beginnings. Papagena asked Wheeler to create something "cheerful, fast-paced and with bird references,” and she didn't disappoint. Bird-like swoops and calls interweave within an intricate contrapuntal design, the piece a riveting, four-minute show-stopper.

As mentioned, every listener will have favourites, and this one's no different. Tucked into the penultimate spot is a chills-inducing performance of Hazel Askew's “Order & Chaos,” with Vango accompanying on piano. Its comforting message is clear—we needn't fear death when our atoms, dispersing into the universe, see us continuing to exist in another form—but the manner by which it's delivered is devastating. As lilting verses segue into the chorus (“Lay me down, set me free / Oh part of this world I'll still be / You'll not find me in order but chaos / As I follow the path that time makes us”), don't be surprised if you're overwhelmed by the song's beauty and the group's reverential treatment. The album closes sublimely too with “O du stille Zeit,” its melody by Cesar Bresgen exuding a rather prayerful, Eric Whitacre-like character. Stated simply, there's much to recommend about this fourth Papagena album statement when so many selections are standouts.

July 2026