Their second Christmas album on Signum Records, Armonico Consort and Christopher Monks return with a new album featuring a collection of carols both old and new. They have created the perfect soundtrack for those who love an atmosphere at Christmas. Featuring world premiere recordings by Composer Toby Young and the first ever recording of ‘Star Song’ by Jonathan Dove on a Christmas album, there are also exquisitely sublime versions from ‘Silent Night’ to ‘Away in a Manger’.

"It is ten years since our last carols recording, and we have collected some incredible works we have been so keen to record, including several commissioned from our composer in residence. Christmas somehow manages to inspire composers to write the most imaginative, both in terms of creativity and melodiousness, and Toby is an expert at making Christmas music sound just as we want it to be!" -- Christopher Monks

An attractive assemblage of powerfully emotive music.

This is the second CD to be inspired by Armonico Consort’s ‘Naked Byrd’ concert programme, which, to quote the Signum publicity material, ‘features music by Tavener, Purcell, Barber and Byrd, composers who wore their hearts on their sleeves, and whose art saw their emotions laid bare, in an atmospheric concert where magical musical moments are intertwined with sublime passages of plainchant and violin improvisation’ It’s similar in manner to Volume 1 which I reviewed in May 2010.

Let me say at once that, having cut though the publicity hype, I found the whole of this programme as beautiful and as excellently sung as the first. It also introduces the listener to some unfamiliar music, but let me also get two small complaints out of the way. The first is that 53 minutes is rather short value for a full-price CD, however good.

Secondly, as was the case with Volume 1, someone picking up the CD in a browser might buy it on impulse under the impression that the music is all or mostly by Byrd, when, in fact, there is only one 4-minute item by him. I’m afraid that the titles of Naked Byrd 1 and 2 do rather beg the question.

What we do have more than compensates – a very wide-ranging and eclectic programme of some of the most beautiful music ever composed, from the opening Salve Regina, attributed to the 11 ^th-century composer Hermannus Contractus, via the two works by the wonderful Abbess Hildegard, to whose music I could listen all night, through the renaissance and baroque, Samuel Barber’s own arrangement of his Adagio and two by-now familiar John Tavener works, to three new compositions here receiving their first outings.

One of these new works is a re-working of an old one by the Consort’s artistic director Christopher Monks, revisiting the same piece from Thomas Tallis’s English settings in Archbishop Parker’s Psalter which Vaughan Williams employed for his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. The result is not quite as magical as that VW composition, partly because Monks stays closer to the original – Tallis was stuck with setting some fairly banal English words and had to set them in a fairly limited manner, unable to make settings of English his own in quite the same way that his younger contemporary Byrd was able to do. Nevertheless, the Phrygian mode of the original is haunting and Monks’ reworking is impressive. I don’t always react favourably to this kind of reinterpretation of earlier music – Jan Garbarek’s realisations on ECM, Officum Novum* and its predecessors, leave me feeling profoundly depressed – but I found Kelly McCusker’s violin weaving around Anna Sanderson’s voice here very moving. As with most of the music here, both ancient and modern, from the soaring opening Salve Regina onwards, the epithet ‘ethereal’ is highly appropriate.

Even if you have the complete Byrd four-part Mass from which the Agnus Dei (tr.12) is excerpted or the complete Victoria Requiem whence Versa est (tr.10) is derived, you shouldn’t feel short-changed. You may, however, note that, as on Volume 1, slower tempi than usual are adopted for these and for most of the medieval and renaissance pieces, even by comparison with the Tallis Scholars, themselves no speed merchants.

The performance of Versa est takes 4:56 against the Scholars’ 4:37 – recently reissued in a wonderful budget-price 3-CD box to celebrate Victoria’s quatercentenary (GIMBX304) – and the Consort’s Agnus Dei weighs in at 4:05 against 3:20 ( The Tallis Scholars sing William Byrd, 2 CDs for the price of one, CDGIM208). The contrast with The Sixteen in Victoria is even more extreme – they take just 4:05 for Versa est. (Coro CORSACD16033 or on a recent 4-CD set COR16089.)** For all that the Consort milk some of the music in this way, the effect is highly attractive. The singing is excellent and the recording does it full justice.

If Naked Byrd and Naked Byrd 2 lead you to explore some of the composers further, so much the better. There’s nowhere better to start than with Hildegard’s music A Feather on the Breath of God – Hyperion CDA30009, the first of my top 30 choices from Hyperion – see review – now at mid price and no overlap with the works on Naked Byrd 2.

The booklet contains the texts and translations, though some of these are a little rough. Spiritus Sanctus (track 6) is especially inaccurate, with est (it is) mistaken throughout for es (you are). Substitute the following translation: ‘The Holy Spirit is the life which gives life;/moving all things, its root is found in all creation,/and it washes everything from impurity, wiping sins clean, it anoints wounds./Thus it is a shining and praiseworthy life,/awakening and re-awakening everything’. The text of Lotti’s Crucifixus etiam pro nobis (tr.8) is translated as ‘he was crucified even for us’ when etiam here means ‘also’, not ‘even’. This passage is especially familiar, since it is taken from the Nicene Creed, so the mistranslation is all the more inexplicable. At least the texts are there this time, when they were conspicuous by their absence from Volume 1.

Minor grumbles about the lack of Byrd in the programme and about the quality of the translations apart, this second volume may be confidently recommended. As with Volume 1, the works from widely different periods sit much better together than I might have predicted. If in any doubt, subscribers to the Naxos Music Library can try it first and read the booklet there.

-- Brian Wilson, MusicWeb International

This new release is a celebration of the music of the British Isles. Spanning the breadth and width of the Isles, this is some of the most beautiful folk music ever written. The arrangements by Geoffrey Webber and Toby Young are mesmerizing. Performing these songs is the Armonico Consort, directed by Christopher Monks.

The story of Beowulf, although thousands of years old, is still loved by many all over the world. This recording of a new musical telling of the story, composed by Toby Young, blurs traditional sense of the genre of classical music by merging it with folk and popular music. This fusion is what makes Beowulf a fantastic story. The greatest versions of the story are not those defined by a simplistic clash of good versus bad, but the ones which involve slight ambiguous points; ones which allow the reader/listener to make his/her mind up about what is exactly going on. The combination of Toby Young’s score and Jennifer Thorp’s libretto create this perfectly – with characterful narration by celebrated actor Timothy West, beautiful performances by soprano Elin Manahan Thomas.

REVIEW

This disc is really a lot of fun. The English composer Toby Young (b. 1990) studied at King’s College, Cambridge (with Robin Holloway) and New College, Oxford. This work is a retelling of the classic story of Beowulf, involving a script by William Towers, based on ideas by Danny Coleman-Cooke, and a sung libretto by Jennifer Thorp. Famed actor Timothy West is the superb narrator, and the young choral forces sing music to accompaniment of a small instrumental ensemble. Coleman-Cooke’s treatment of the story introduces ambiguity rather than hewing to a simple good vs. evil dynamic. Young’s music feels perfectly gauged. Each “cue” is never too long. The overall style is both completely of the present while also evoking the “ancient” era of the story. It is beautifully recorded and performed, and makes for a most enjoyable hour of storytelling in words and music.

--Fanfare

LET THE BRIGHT SERAPHIM • Christopher Monks, cond; Elin Manahan Thomas (sop); Crispian Steele-Perkins (tpt); Armonico Consort (period instruments) • SIGNUM SAGCD289 (59:07)

BACH Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, BWV 51. A. SCARLATTI Su le sponde del Tebro. TELEMANN Trumpet Concerto in D. HANDEL Music for the Vauxhall Gardens: HWV 63, 14, 42, 20, 74. Water Music: Overture; Air; Hornpipe. Samson, HWV 57, “Let the Bright Seraphim”

When does an early-music ensemble go Pop? Or Mod for that matter? The answer may well be when it’s Armonico Consort, with its very eclectic and sometimes even bizarre (though they call it “original”) programming, which features themed concerts designed to attract new audiences to classical music. To read the description of their concerts so far, with rubrics such as “Too Hot to Handel,” “Naked Byrd,” or “Monteverdi’s Flying Circus,” one wonders whether this is a revamped branding in order to be hip, or if someone in Britain has gone off the reservation. Whatever one’s view of this sort of advertising, there is little doubt that they have made some impressive achievements, such as founding the AC Academy for interactive music education, which will no doubt assure a bright future for music in England, at least. This disc seems to take a more sedate view, using George Fredrick Handel’s famous aria from Samson as the title. Here, the ensemble under Christopher Monks partners with soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins, both well-known superstars in the early-music world, to create a program of favorites.

The cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen is a tried and true soprano display piece, whose final Alleluia is a magnificent tour de force for both voice and clarion trumpet, especially since it follows on to the sedate cantus firmus colophon “Sei Lob und Preis” in typically Bachian cantata style. The Scarlatti cantata too is a favorite for sopranos seeking to outdo the great Farinelli, while every trumpeter worth anything has in his or her repertory the Telemann D-Major Trumpet Concerto, with its flashy runs and showy sequences. Where the program departs from the ordinary is with the so-called “Music for the Vauxhall Gardens,” a paean towards the popular outdoors venue in London during the 18th century, where summer concerts were given in a rather impressive pavilion. The five pieces include a sort of greatest hits parade compiled by Steele-Perkins after similar bits and pieces published in the 1740s by John Walsh, concluding with some works from the Water Music , once ascribed to Handel but now probably by one of his subordinates, John Grano (1692-1748), and of course the title aria. As a concert, it is recognizable, even perhaps a bit well worn, since almost all of the pieces have been recorded previously by people such as Steele-Perkins himself and Emma Kirkby.

The result is something that purists might find redundant, though the performances themselves are quite good. Thomas has a nice, vibrant voice that blends well with the period instruments, and the Consort is both in tune and has some nice phrasing in these warhorses, which is the mark of absolute professionalism. Steele-Perkins performs ably for his part, with just enough variability to be able to discern the valveless quality of his natural trumpet, performing the various virtuoso parts with agility and alacrity. My hesitancy in the face of such a performance is that most who are knowledgeable of the period will not find these renditions out of the ordinary, even though they are expert. Moreover, the program itself will only appeal to a certain audience since many listeners will already have equally expert recordings of entire pieces at hand, though perhaps not all on one disc. Still, if one is just beginning to explore either the world of the Baroque, or even classical music at all, this should have some appeal.

FANFARE: Bertil van Boer

Supersize Polyphony is a celebration of large-scale choral works from the 16th century, performed here by the Armonico Consort and the Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, under their musical directors Christopher Monks and Geoffrey Webber. The unique programme features epic motets, such as Thomas Tallis' Spem in Alium and Alessandro Striggio's Ecce Beatam Lucem, alongside his rarely performed 60 part Missa sopra Ecco Si Beato Giorno. Interspersed with the serene beauty of ethereal chants by Hildegard of Bingen, this new recording presents works of magnitude and polyphonic drama in stellar performances by two of the UK's leading choral ensembles. Now Available as a CD / SACD Surround Sound album.

Armonico Consort present their next instalment of works by Franceso Scarlatti, this time his only surviving oratorio 'Il Daniele nel Lago de'Leoni' or Daniel in the Lions' Den. Scarlatti's Daniele conforms in all general aspects to the typical Sicilian oratorio of the late-seventeenth century, which was itself closely modelled on Roman practice: four or five singers inhabit character roles, without a separate narrator, together with a chorus often consisting of the soloists singing in ensemble.

Their tenth album with Signum Classics, the Armonico Consort directed by Christopher Monks return with two works by Francesco Scarlatti. This recording has been made using new editions of the works, (made especially for this recording) that were created from autograph scores. Armonico Consort began life in 2001, set up by Christopher Monks and a group of university colleagues with a shared passion for music from the Renaissance to Baroque, coupled with the imagination to find new and unusual ways to present concerts. Audiences seemed to love their engaging and imaginative approach, and most concerts in the first years sold out.

The founder and Artistic Director of Armonico Consort and its ground-breaking education program AC Academy, Christopher Monks has established himself as a versatile and prolific conductor and keyboard player. Specialising in the performance of music from the Baroque and late Renaissance, Christopher is equally at home with major and modern choral repertoire.

REVIEW:

The performances are strong, superbly shaped by Monks, and played and sung, one voice to a part, with great precision.

-- Gramophone