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The Golden Renaissance: William Byrd
Stile Antico
Classical - Released January 13, 2023 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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The 400th anniversary year of William Byrd's death gets off to a roaring start with this collection of mostly Catholic choral music from the small (mixed-gender, adult) choir Stile Antico. This justly celebrated group works without a conductor and is recognized for its flexible and sensitive treatment of texts, even in one as well-worn as that of the Catholic mass. Here, sample the "Qui propter nos homines" section from Credo of the Mass for Four Voices, which runs all the way through Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. There are many performances of this Byrd masterpiece, but few that convey so much of the sense of awe and reverence with which Byrd infused these words. The Mass is broken up, as would have occurred in Byrd's time, with motets appropriate to the various parts of the mass. None of these is particularly rare, but the clarity and warmth of Stile Antico's music-making here is consistently remarkable. There are a few Anglican English pieces, and for listeners who do not speak Latin, these will confirm the group's gifts in clear text articulation. A superb job all around on a release that could serve any listener well as an introduction to Byrd's sacred music and made classical best-seller charts in early 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Handel: Coronation Anthems
Rias Kammerchor
Classical - Released April 28, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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Just in time for the coronation of King Charles III comes this release, featuring music written for the coronations of George II in 1727 and of George I before him. The Handel works, written for the 1727 event, are the pure public Handel, with imposing choral-orchestral chords interspersed with straightforward but not simple episodes of counterpoint. They are meant to be crowd-pleasers, and indeed, they are; they're hard to ruin. What is on offer here from the RIAS-Kammerchor Berlin and the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin under conductor Justin Doyle are elegant but undersized performances characteristic of the Continental historical performance movement. Reports from Handel's time indicated an orchestra of 160; here are but 20 players. The choir, at 36 singers, is closer to Handel's 40, and this veteran group delivers a rich, satisfying sound with a rounded tone from the smaller solo group (not indicated in the score but often performed as it is here). The anthem The Lord Is a Sun and Shield is not by Handel but by William Croft, and one will be struck by how close it is to Handel stylistically. The overture to Handel's Occasional Oratorio, HWV 62, serves as an overture to the whole program, and there is a typically odd Chaconne by John Blow as an interlude. These are less-splendid but highly enjoyable performances for reliving the coronation atmosphere.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Morning Star: Music for Epiphany Down the Ages
Owain Park
Classical - Released November 3, 2023 | Hyperion
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After nearly ten years of existence, the male vocal sextet The Gesualdo Six, formed behind the desks of Cambridge University, can boast of having developed a tone and personality that are all their own, already immortalized on eight albums released on Hyperion. Since Universal Music Group’s purchase of the label, digital music fans can rejoice about being able to enjoy the Hyperion catalogue as it is gradually made available on streaming platforms and for download. The Morning Star is the first new release from The Gesualdo Six since the label’s new life. With the approach of the holiday season, the sextet has come up with a repertoire that sweeps nearly five centuries of vocal music. The common thread that links the works? They all are anchored in a seminal episode of the Biblical tradition: the night the infant Christ was visited by the Three Wise Men. The album features titles from the Franco-Flemish school of the sixteenth century (Lassus, Manchicourt) to contemporary compositions by Arvo Pärt and Joanna Marsh.The vocal perfection of the Gesualdo Six can’t help but unite all sensibilities, going beyond any potential divides within this program that freely and happily jumps from era to era, at the risk of startling the listener’s ear. They manage to do so on account of the musical genius of the singers, who are perfect on all counts: their sonoric unity, the fashioning of their timbre, their perfectly-coordinated breathing. A breathtaking jewel of a record that is likely one of, if not the, most beautiful vocal music production of 2023. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz
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Tambour Vision (Nouvelle édition)
Bertrand Belin
French Music - Released November 18, 2022 | Wagram Music - Cinq 7
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The Sound Of Music
Rodgers & Hammerstein
Film Soundtracks - Released December 1, 2023 | Craft Recordings
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Nisi Dominus
Eva Zaïcik
Classical - Released September 2, 2022 | Alpha Classics
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In the seventeenth century, the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice took in young orphan girls who received advanced musical instruction. The concerts given there attracted visitors from all over the world, curious to hear these divine voices which remained invisible, since the girls performed hidden behind the grilles of the chapel gallery. Vivaldi became Maestro de’ Concerti of the Pietà in 1714, and it was his pupils who performed his famous Nisi Dominus. Today they are succeeded by the mezzo-soprano Eva Zaïcik, who brings out the full poignancy of the aria Cum dederit. Another motet by Vivaldi, Invicti bellate, also composed for the Pietà, features in this programme planned and conducted by Vincent Dumestre. He invites us on a musical journey centred on the figure of woman and on divine praise, with composers awaiting discovery such as Serafino Razzi (1534-1619) and Soto de Langa (1531 1611). © Alpha Classics
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Frantisek Tuma (Motets, Dixit Dominus, Sinfonia)
Andreas Scholl
Classical - Released November 10, 2023 | Aparté
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The name of František Tůma is known mostly to scholars of the middle 18th century, and possibly not even to all of those, but the Czech Ensemble Baroque and conductor Roman Válek have been trying to change that situation, with Válek pointing out that both Haydn and Mozart knew Tůma's music and were influenced by it in their early years, especially in the realm of sacred music. This release comes with a guest star, countertenor Andreas Scholl, and his large legion of fans will certainly take to it; he is in fine form, and he is to be commended for lending his presence to this fairly obscure project in the midst of the big crossover releases he can often command. However, the sections with the other soloists are hardly less strong. Sample the second-movement "Tecum principium" tenor-bass duet with Ondřej Holub and Jiří Miroslav Procházka in the Dixit Dominus. This work is from 1743, slightly earlier than most of the other works on the album, but it is the most progressive, with lots of light galant figures in the first movement. It may be the stylistic variety that turned off the keepers of the historical canon; sometimes, as in the Motettum de tempore of 1750, he writes big arias that wouldn't have been out of place in an earlier Baroque opera. For today's listeners, though, Tůma's music is an appealing immersion in the various stylistic currents churning through the music of the middle 18th century, and it is, without exception, well made. Válek's orchestra and his choral singers are equally strong in a recording that will appeal to any lover of the late Baroque and early Classical periods.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Arvo Pärt : The Deer's Cry
Vox Clamantis
Classical - Released September 9, 2016 | ECM New Series
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Distinctions
Diapason d'or -
Choc de Classica -
5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
This is a gorgeous collection of music by this Estonian "holy minimalist" composer. Most of the music is for chorus a cappella, with a few pieces accompanied by organ or a small ensemble. The album is notable on several fronts. It contains mostly music written after 2000, with just a few of the Pärt classics, and this is the only thing that might give pause to a listener interested in an initial foray into the Pärt discography. So for those interested in what Pärt has been up to in his old age, this is an essential release; he seems, on the basis of these mostly commissioned works, to be moving in the direction of a newly direct simplicity. Sample the limpid Virgencita, which, like other works on the album, are given in the booklet only in their original languages, some of which are not in Latin script. But the real news here is the performance by the small Estonian choir (17 voices, intriguingly tenor heavy) Vox Clamantis. Typically for ECM, the booklet is more Instagram than Facebook and includes no detail about what went on, but Pärt has written for this choir and seems to have had direct input into the performances. Whatever the case, the sound is pearly (or alabaster, if you prefer), and the exceptionally smooth and controlled phrasing may be taken to represent the composer's intentions. A marvelous Pärt collection, with flawless and entirely idiomatic sound from the Tallinn Transfiguration Church. One track, recorded earlier and elsewhere, has the effect of introducing a vein of sonic color into the whole.© TiVo
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Officium Novum
Jan Garbarek
Classical - Released September 17, 2010 | ECM New Series
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More than 15 years separate the release of Jan Garbarek's best-selling album Officium from his Officium Novum. The newer release, like the original, features Garbarek on soprano and tenor saxophones and the male vocal quartet the Hilliard Ensemble. In both albums, Garbarek takes pre-existing vocal pieces and embroiders them with his soulful obbligato contributions. The chaste austerity of the men's voices and the reedy plaintiveness of the saxophone make for a surprisingly effective pairing. Garbarek and the singers manage to merge two very different musical worlds without compromising the integrity of either, and that is part of what gives these albums such an impact. The first album used primarily Medieval and Renaissance material -- chants, motets, and liturgical song -- while this second mostly uses more recent source material, primarily from Eastern Europe. In addition to several medieval sources, included are works by the early 20th century Armenian priest, musicologist, and composer Komitas; Nikolai N. Kedrov, a Russian composer of the same era; the mid-20th century Greek composer Giorgios Sefaris; the Estonian Arvo Pärt; and several original pieces by Garbarek himself. Like the first album, this one is suffused with a sense of distant mystery and a profound, powerful melancholy that is given voice with intense feeling. The sound again is spacious and warmly resonant, with an earthy, enveloping ambience. This album will be a must-have for anyone who loved the first one, and it should appeal to any listener with an affinity for meditative Eastern European spirituality, especially when tied to contemporary expressivity and stylistic freedom.
© Stephen Eddins /TiVo
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Anima Sacra (Fago, Zelenka, Hasse, Durante, Feo...)
Jakub Józef Orliński
Sacred Vocal Music - Released October 26, 2018 | Warner Classics
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5 de Diapason -
Choc de Classica -
5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
For his first album as a soloist, the Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński chose to explore some of the rarest repertoires, to the point that several of the pieces presented here are world premieres. As a result, we are introduced to composers who are almost unknown today: Gaetano Schiassi (1698-1754), Domènec Terradellas (1711-1751) and Nicola Fago (1677-1745), alongside other composers who are famous today such as Hasse, Zelenka or Durante. Helped by the bass-baritone Yannis François, Orliński covers a large amount of time, from the end of the 17th century to the last third of the 18th century, though solely in the spiritual domain, with Masses, Dixit Dominus or sacred oratorios. That said, the vocal and instrumental writing borrows from baroque, with its vocalisations, its embellishments and its brightness. On top of this, the ensemble il pomo d'oro performs the work with great confidence. © SM/Qobuz
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Graduel d'Aliénor de Bretagne
Vox Clamantis
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released March 3, 2023 | Mirare
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The Graduel d'Aliénor de Bretagne (or "Gradual of Eleanor of Brittany") is a chant manuscript from (probably) the second half of the 13th century, held at the Bibliothèque Francophone Multimédia de Limoges. The manuscript is magnificently illuminated, and listeners are invited to page through it on the library's website. Here, the small choir Vox Clamantis offers performances of chants from the book; they are distinctive in many ways, making this release of interest to generalists as well as to those engaged with chant. First and most important, these were chants apparently made and sung by nuns, and the performances here mostly mix male and female singers. Whereas most chant recordings strive for a timeless purity, director Jaan-Eik Tulve instead places the music in the everyday life of an abbey, with noises ranging from bells to birdsong and the shuffling of feet. The chants are also presented as the original singers might have done at the time if they had gotten wind of the initial experiments with what became polyphony: octave doublings, and even little bits of apparently improvised, non-notated counterpoint. The cumulative effect of these devices is to present the chants not as something abstract but as lived experience, and the Mirare label's splendid treatment of the Abbaye royale de Fontevraud supports the artists' aims ideally. A fascinating collection of chant that will please any listener aesthetically while also putting across something of what chant meant to the people who created it.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Ančerl Gold Edition 14. Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex, Symphony of Psalms
Ivo Žídek, Věra Soukupová, Karel Berman, Eduard Haken, Zdeněk Kroupa, Antonín Zlesák, Jean Desailly, Karel Ančerl, Josef Veselka, Czech Philharmonic,
Classical - Released January 1, 2003 | Supraphon a.s.
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Polyphonies oubliées. Faux-bourdons (XVIe-XIXe s.)
Dominique Vellard
Sacred Vocal Music - Released December 1, 2014 | Aparté
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Diapason d'or -
4 étoiles Classica
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The Sound Of Music
Rodgers & Hammerstein
Film Soundtracks - Released March 1, 1965 | Craft Recordings
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Remember Me, My Dear
Jan Garbarek
Classical - Released October 18, 2019 | ECM New Series
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25 years on from the release of Officium, the groundbreaking alliance of Jan Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble, comes Remember me, my dear, recorded during the final tour the group made in October 2014. The program is emblematic of the range of repertoire the Norwegian saxophonist and British vocal quartet explored together – from Pérotin, Hildegard von Bingen, Guillaume le Rouge, Antoine Brumel to Komitas, Arvo Pärt and more. It could be said that the Hilliard/Garbarek combination, in concert, transcended its source materials, with early music, contemporary composition and improvisation interfused in the responsive acoustics of sacred spaces. And this final album reminds us that the unique Garbarek/Hilliard combination, and its unprecedented exploration of sound, was consistently breathtaking. © ECM Records
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Arvo Pärt: Choral Music
Polyphony
Classical - Released September 28, 2014 | Hyperion
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Stabat Mater pour deux castrats
Samuel Marino
Classical - Released March 5, 2021 | Château de Versailles Spectacles
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Two countertenors for Pergolesi's Stabat Mater: this is the resurrection of the first performance in France of this work, introduced by two Italian Castratos from the Royal Chapel of Louis XV, who were enthusiastic propagators of it both at Court and at the Concert Spirituel. Paris was conquered and saw in it the revolutionary mark of a Neapolitan genius, who alas passed away so young. Pergolesi, shortly before his death at the age of 26 and affected by illness, expressed the Virgin's suffering with the language of passion more typical of opera. The Stabat Mater, first performed in 1736, is one of the emblematic works of the baroque and had a profound effect on the musical world of the 18th century. To give full splendour to the sumptuous duet of angelic voices lamenting the pain of Mary at the foot of the Cross, two performers are required who blend their timbres, like the two Neapolitan castratos for whom this music was composed. The brilliant sopranist Samuel Marino and the no less brilliant counter-tenor Filippo Mineccia form the exceptional duo for this programme of emotion and virtuosity. © Château de Versailles Spectacles
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Amarae morti: Lamentations & Motets from Renaissance Europe
El León de Oro
Classical - Released February 1, 2019 | Hyperion
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Booklet
A sublime survey of sacred music of the high Renaissance, Hyperion's 2018 release Amarae Morti offers transparent performances by Peter Phillips and the a cappella chamber choir El León de Oro. Covering music of the Franco-Flemish and Iberian schools, the program follows a trajectory from darkness to light, from somber motets by Dominique Phinot, Orlande de Lassus, Nicolas Gombert, and Manuel Cardoso to glorious works by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Cristóbal de Morales, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. There is a consistency of subjects in the program, which includes settings of the Lamentations, Media Vita, the Regina Coeli, and the Magnificat, revealing different treatments of these familiar texts and varying levels of complexity and contrapuntal mastery, which culminate in the magnificent polychoral works of Victoria and Palestrina. The 33-voice Spanish choir El León de Oro presents luminous interpretations of these sometimes melancholy but often ethereal pieces, and the direction of early music specialist Phillips, who also leads the famed Tallis Scholars, is as impeccable as ever, with an ear to finding the clearest textures in even the richest part writing. The album was recorded in the Church of St. James the Greater in Sariego, Asturias, so the pure 16th century counterpoint is heard to best advantage in its warmly vibrant acoustics.© TiVo
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An Old Hall Ladymass
Trio Mediæval
Classical - Released May 19, 2023 | 2L
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Trio Mediaeval has been around since the early years of the new century, offering a mix of medieval polyphony and contemporary music. The all-female composition of the group offers a fresh sound without raising problems of authenticity, for, of course, nuns in convents sang polyphony. This album, recorded in 2022, has several standout points. One is the beautifully recorded sound from Oslo's Uranienborg Church, which helped earn producer Morten Lindberg a Grammy nomination for Producer of the Year. The space throws each singer's voice into sharp relief and brings out the points, often associated with dissonances in the music, where a singer departs from the group's characteristic smooth blend. The recording is also notable in that it leans unusually far toward the medieval (or mediaeval) end of the group's repertory. There are contemporary compositions for the vocal trio and for the delightful organetto of Catalina Vicens, but they remain close to the language of the medieval pieces, and indeed, one of the pleasures of the album lies in listening for these small shifts. The title An Old Hall Ladymass refers not to a single composition but to a program newly assembled by Trio Mediaeval. The Old Hall Manuscript is a primary source for medieval English polyphony, and there are pieces of three types here: mass movements (not part of a full mass setting originally), motets pertaining to Mary (hence the "Lady" designation), and contemporary pieces. Some of the medieval pieces have named composers, of whom little is known, while others are anonymous. Listeners who let this music -- so exotic from a contemporary perspective -- wash over them will be in for a beautiful experience.© James Manheim /TiVo
L'Amour...
Disiz
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released March 18, 2022 | Argentic Music - Capitol
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