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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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Rolling River: American Choral
Choir of Clare College, Cambridge
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released March 31, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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American choirs sound quite different from British ones in the main, and one may wonder about the feasibility of performing American works in a British collegiate choral style, as is done here. However, this collection works nicely, and there are several reasons for this. The biggest is the web of interconnections between the choral traditions explored on this release by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, and director Graham Ross. The program kicks off with Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, composed for Britain's Southern Choirs Festival in 1965. Those wondering what Herbert Howells is doing on a program of this kind will learn that his Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing was written as a memorial to John F. Kennedy. Eric Whitacre has worked extensively in Britain, and it is delightful to have his Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine as the finale here rather than the ubiquitous Lux aurumque. Another point in the collection's favor is that the choir is composed of adult male and female voices, not boys. Bernstein preferred boys in the Psalms but agreed to the possibility of adult female singers, and they work better in this context. The folk song Shenandoah sounds a bit exotic here, but no more so than any number of American performances of British choral music. The bottom line is that this is a pleasing performance of a variety of American pieces, a bit on the restrained side perhaps, but fully idiomatic and enjoyable.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Mysterium
Anne Akiko Meyers
Classical - Released October 28, 2022 | Avie Records
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Anne Akiko Meyers’ imagination and ingenuity knows no bounds. Her idea to persuade leading living composer Morten Lauridsen to transform his choral masterpiece, O magnum mysterium, into a work for violin and choir is a masterstroke. Teaming up with conductor Grant Gershon – who first collaborated with Anne as chamber musicians over 40 years ago – and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, for whom Lauridsen was their first Composer in Residence, Anne rounds out this digital EP with three other arrangements for violin and chorus of ever-popular works by Johann Sebastian Bach. The result is gold dust for the holiday season. © AVIE Records
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Noël
Various Composers
Classical - Released August 18, 2023 | Signum Records
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Christmas ! Noël ! Weinachten !
Hans-Christoph Rademann
Classical - Released October 21, 2013 | harmonia mundi
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Light Eternal – The Choral Music of Morten Lauridsen
Chamber Choir of Europe
Classical - Released October 26, 2018 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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A Choral Tapestry
Voces 8
Classical - Released February 6, 2012 | Signum Records
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Francis Poulenc : Choral Works
Harry Christophers
Sacred Vocal Music - Released January 27, 2017 | The Sixteen Productions Ltd.
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The sacred music of Francis Poulenc would seem somewhat off the regular path of the popular British choir The Sixteen, but in a recording of the cantata Figure humaine and again with the present selection of sacred choral works, they show themselves to be sensitive and skillful Poulenc interpreters. On one hand this isn't a surprise: Poulenc drew on the Renaissance repertoire that is The Sixteen's bread and butter. They can deliver the clean lines and the vocal homogeneity that the basic style demands. But this is not neo-Renaissance music; it has a numinous, radiant quality and communicates the feeling that it was directly shaped by Poulenc's own experiences. This is where The Sixteen excel: they convey a sense of commitment to the music, and their readings are unique. Sample the "O magnum mysterium." There are dozens of recordings of this piece, beloved by school choirs in several countries, but Sixteen director Harry Christophers here shapes a flowing reading that's faster than usual and uniquely suits the transcendent quality of the text. The Mass in G is perfectly controlled, but somehow radiant. Christophers' engineering staff delivers superior results in London's Church of St. Alban the Martyr, and the package as a whole offers uniquely satisfying results even for those who already have plenty of Poulenc, or plenty of The Sixteen.
© TiVo
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Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina, Vol. 4
Palestrina
Classical - Released September 2, 2013 | Coro
Booklet
Distinctions
5 de Diapason
British choral conductor Harry Christophers and his handpicked group the Sixteen have been around long enough that they can feel free to explore certain repertories in more detail, releasing the results on their own label, Coro. The familiarity extends to the sound environment: the group's engineers capture the vocal blend in startling detail in this recording, made at the Church of St. Alban the Martyr in London. Palestrina, with his complex but crystal-clear textures, is a composer well suited to the Sixteen's style, which is akin to that of the British cathedral choirs but more intimate, with a bit more texture in the voices. Now you get not just famous works of Palestrina, but a cycle of works (now up to volume 4, and it's not clear of what the cycle might consist -- surely not all of Palestrina's hundreds of works!) that go into greater depth. Several of the volumes thus far, including this one, have included a mass, the medium in which Palestrina displayed his most expansive architectural genius, together with a group of shorter works. It's a bit curious that the Missa O Magnum Mysterium heard here isn't accompanied by the motet on which it is based, although that motet is discussed in the booklet notes. But by listening to this release in conjunction with others in the set, you can get an idea of how Palestrina's unique sound world interacted with the structural principles in the music of his day. Several of the shorter works, too, are unusually beautiful: sample the Song of Songs settings (tracks 11-13). This is a worthwhile Palestrina release for newcomers as well as devotees of the composer who two generations ago was synonymous with Renaissance music but is lately even a bit underperformed.
© TiVo
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The Birth of the Violin (La naissance du violon)
Le Miroir de Musique
Classical - Released March 12, 2013 | Ricercar
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5 de Diapason -
4 étoiles Classica
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Zelenka: Missa Nativitatis Domini and Magnificat. Music from 18th Century Prague
Barbora Sojková, Markéta Cukrová, Tomáš Král, Marek Štryncl, Musica Florea
Classical - Released October 1, 2012 | Supraphon a.s.
Mirror in Mirror
Anne Akiko Meyers
Classical - Released September 7, 2018 | Avie Records
Booklet
Download not available
The American violinist Anne Akiko Meyers has always had a distinctive programming sense to go with her lush tone (sample the title work, Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel, for a splendid example of the latter). But she has perhaps never been more original than on this, her 33rd album. Meyers calls the album one of her most personal projects, and the description holds up even though the recordings were made at several different times. Much of the music was written for her, and she has worked with all the composers or arrangers at one time or another. The sequence of events is unique, with the trio of minimalist works that open the album, all arranged specially for Meyers, not presented as parts of an abstract world of their own -- Glass and Pärt usually get programmed by themselves -- but as participants in a long tradition. They react to Ravel's Tzigane, here offered in a computer realization of its rarely heard original version for luthéal, a sort of piano-cimbalom hybrid. (This is worth the album price by itself.) And they now have inspired successors, such as Polish composer Jakub Ciupinski, who contributes a pair of works for violin and electronics. It's not clear how these were realized in performance, but presumably a visit to an event on Meyers' touring schedule would reveal the secrets; anyhow, they're fascinating and evocative pieces. Meyers' Glass and Pärt also address, and are addressed by, parallel styles closer to Romanticism from John Corigliano and Morten Lauridsen, whose O magnum mysterium fares beautifully in a violin-and-orchestra arrangement. The album is at once intelligently thought out, sensuously beautiful, and deeply spiritual. Highly recommended.© TiVo
The American violinist Anne Akiko Meyers has always had a distinctive programming sense to go with her lush tone (sample the title work, Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel, for a splendid example of the latter). But she has perhaps never been more original than on this, her 33rd album. Meyers calls the album one of her most personal projects, and the description holds up even though the recordings were made at several different times. Much of the music was written for her, and she has worked with all the composers or arrangers at one time or another. The sequence of events is unique, with the trio of minimalist works that open the album, all arranged specially for Meyers, not presented as parts of an abstract world of their own -- Glass and Pärt usually get programmed by themselves -- but as participants in a long tradition. They react to Ravel's Tzigane, here offered in a computer realization of its rarely heard original version for luthéal, a sort of piano-cimbalom hybrid. (This is worth the album price by itself.) And they now have inspired successors, such as Polish composer Jakub Ciupinski, who contributes a pair of works for violin and electronics. It's not clear how these were realized in performance, but presumably a visit to an event on Meyers' touring schedule would reveal the secrets; anyhow, they're fascinating and evocative pieces. Meyers' Glass and Pärt also address, and are addressed by, parallel styles closer to Romanticism from John Corigliano and Morten Lauridsen, whose O magnum mysterium fares beautifully in a violin-and-orchestra arrangement. The album is at once intelligently thought out, sensuously beautiful, and deeply spiritual. Highly recommended.© TiVo
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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (Volume 2)
Palestrina
Classical - Released October 1, 2012 | Coro
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O Magnum Mysterium
Morten Lauridsen
Classical - Released December 3, 2021 | NYCGB
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In Winter's House
Tenebrae
Classical - Released August 26, 2022 | Signum Records
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A former vocalist with the famous King's Singers, Nigel Short founded the Tenebrae Choir in 2001. This choir combines vocal virtuosity with a high degree of precision, using atmosphere and light to create a new perspective for the audience during their concerts. The ensemble sings a familiar repertoire whilst commissioning new works from composers from all walks of life. For their fourth 'Christmas album', they’ve chosen to surround Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony of Carols with new pieces, some written exclusively for them by both male and female composers.It was in the midst of the war—whilst sailing from the United States to England on a Swedish freighter threatened by German submarines—that Britten composed his famous cycle for children's choir, to be delicately accompanied by the harp. Paradoxically, the work was premiered by a women's choir, but the composer recorded it in its original version in 1958. The simplicity of the twelve parts of A Ceremony of Carols soon became part of the English choral repertoire. Presented here is a masterfully refined female version, featuring a young boy treble (soprano).This beautiful chiaroscuro album begins with ‘The Shepherd’s Carol’, composed by Bob Chilcott in memory of his own experience as a boy singer at King's College Cambridge during the magical Christmas period. Other pieces in this typically British programme include ‘In Winter’s House’, an angelic new piece for five singers composed by Joanna Marsh in 2019 for Tenebrae, and ‘Vox dicentis’, the beautiful Advent anthem composed by Cambridge College organist and composer Edward Woodall Naylor in 1911. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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The Christmas Story
Paul Hillier
Classical - Released September 13, 2011 | harmonia mundi
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This anthology of Christmas carols from the European tradition is not as banal a collection as it may seem. Paul Hillier's intention here is to place himself in the context of history and musicology, his work being similar to that of Arthur Honegger, who at the end of his life composed A Christmas Cantata, which was based on various traditional songs, motets and folk songs. Paul Hillier's work is, as always, of a high standard. Four singers per party in the old English tradition of "Nine Lessons and Carols" which had its first outing on Christmas Eve 1880 in Cornwall. Two ensembles share a selection of texts and melodies which have been arranged for this recording: Theatre of Voices with a discreet accompaniment of theorbo, guitar and organ, and Ars Nova Copenhagen, an a cappella choir with an exceptional quality of style and intonation. The dialogues come from the Italian repertoire of the seventeenth century from which the oratorio would arise. The music comes from the English, German and Italian popular traditions to which Paul Hillier has added some later pieces by Hopkins, Gade and Skempton. This unique story of the Nativity exudes a seductively interior atmosphere and wonder. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Cambridge Singers Christmas Album
Cambridge Singers
Classical - Released September 1, 2003 | Collegium
Booklet
This is the holiday disc of the year, a slice of merry old English tradition at its best. Reversing the usual American glee club order of things, conductor John Rutter and his Cambridge Singers open with seasonal carols and then, when listeners' ears have been limbered up by Rutter's own arrangements and those by David Willcocks and other figures from the English choral world, moves on to Renaissance pieces and modern compositions by Warlock, Tavener, Britten, Kenneth Leighton, and Vaughan Williams (the Fantasia on Christmas Carols). Even those cool to Rutter's own choral music will concede his skills as a conductor; the Cambridge Singers, at a perfect size between chamber choir and distant, vast cathedral group, sound both beautifully precise and sweetly lyrical under his baton. Rutter also contributes another of the disc's most attractive features; his liner notes are packed with enjoyable information and trivia that illuminate something of the paths familiar carols took to public consciousness, of how today's corpus of Christmas carols resulted from the combined efforts of folklorists, choir leaders, and compiler/editors of years past. "[L]ike so much of the best Christmas music," writes Rutter, Vaughan Williams' Fantasia "seems to encompass both mystery and joy." Much the same might be said of this top-notch seasonal collection, accessible to all yet filled with subtleties for the discerning.
© TiVo
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