What?? An evensong group, without any mention of Mags & Nuncs (not to mention Preces & Responses)??  Have we absolutely no shame? :-)

C'mon, guys!  What are your favorite evening canticle settings, and which Preces/Responses would you take with you to a desert island (where, obviously, there'd be a collegiate chapel with a precentor and a choir that sounds JUSt like St. John's, Cambridge or New College, Oxford).  Ok, I'll get the ball rolling: Howells' Gloucester Service (probably my all time fave), Stanford in A, Parry in D, Gibbons 2nd service, Howells St. Paul's, Murrill in E, Leighton 2nd service, Brewer in Eb.  Oh, and Dyson in D (gosh, that Nunc!).  Preces/Responses?  I'd take Leighton and Rose with me to that island, and probably Ayleward, too.

Next? :-)

I'm fond of Dyson's in D as well -- especially the Nunc, especially the "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost" section -- and was fortunate enough to sing it once, when I was about 12, with a choir that sounded very much like New College.  We weren't on a desert island, though :)

I'm also partial to Walmisley's D Minor.  And, of course, everything Thomas Tallis ever wrote, because I am a sucker for polyphony.

I would also bring the chapel from Trinity College in Hartford, CT, because it has fantastic acoustics.

I'll have to ponder the Preces and Responses, but since nobody else has replied in almost a year, I doubt anyone will mind :)