Cappella Romana
16 products
Bach: Saint John Passion [2 CDs]
One of JS Bach’s most famous and loved masterpieces with the Portland Baroque Orchestra conducted by Monica Huggett. The double-CD package includes full texts and translations. (Avie)
A Byzantine Emperor at King Henry's Court / Lingas, Cappella Romana
At the end of the fourteenth century, musical worlds collided in England as Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos spent Christmas at King Henry IV’s royal court. For the first and only time, florid chant, polyphony, royal ceremonial, and imperial acclamations from both kingdoms and rites echoed antiphonally in London’s Eltham Palace. Cappella Romana’s performance is illuminated by the latest research on historically informed performance of medieval music. Cappella Romana tells this musical story of cultural contact in international crisis with clarity and beauty.
Travel back to a Christmas like no other before or since, with music for the Nativity of Christ not heard in centuries. Vocal ensemble Cappella Romana combines passion with scholarship in its exploration of early and contemporary music of the Christian East and West. Its name refers to the medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which embraced Rome and Western Europe as well as the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople (“New Rome”) and its Slavic commonwealth. A Byzantine Emperor at King Henry’s Court is Cappella Romana’s 30th release.
REVIEW:
What is most striking here is that Cappella Romana, although deeply immersed in Byzantine ways of singing, also accomplishes a very different and distinctive sound for the English pieces, adding an appealing bit of gravel in the texture. As with other Cappella Romana recordings, this one was splendidly recorded at the Madeleine Parish in Portland, Oregon. With detailed booklet notes exploring the various issues involved, this is a unique and fascinating medieval release.
-- AllMusic.com (James Manheim)
The Fall of Constantinople
Good Friday in Jerusalem - Medieval Byzantine Chant / Cappella Romana
Moody: The Akathistos Hymn / Lingas, Cappella Romana
This release beautifully showcases the Akáthistos Hymn to the Virgin Mary, set by Ivan Moody. This lyrical masterpiece in 24 stanzas has been treasured for nearly 1,500 years by Eastern Christians. Father Moody’s 1998 setting, composed specially for the ensemble, weaves beloved Greek melodies into Russian choral textures as it progresses from reverent contemplation to ecstatic transcendence. Father Ivan Moody studied music and theology at the Universities of London, Joensuu, and York. He studied composition with Brian Dennis, Sir John Tavener, and William Brooks. His music has been broadcast and performed all over the world. He is an archpriest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and is Chairman of the International Society for Orthodox Music. This is the world premiere recording of this work.
Live In Greece
Cyprus: Between Greek East & Latin West
Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia / Lingas, Cappella Romana [CD + Blu-ray Audio]
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REVIEW:
In the winter of 2010, Ms. Bissera Pentcheva obtained permission to enter what was then the Hagia Sophia museum at dawn, capturing four balloon pops and a wealth of acoustic detail.
The balloon noises, along with maps of the interior, enabled identification of the acoustic fingerprint of the building, including the multidirectional refraction of sound as it bounces off the dome and marble colonnades. Computer simulations were then integrated into a set of microphones and speakers.
Thus the members of Cappella Romana, a vocal ensemble based in Portland, Ore., specializing in Byzantine chant, recorded “The Lost Voices” in an offsite space that persuasively mimicked the acoustics of Hagia Sophia — with its luscious reverberation, cross echoes, and amplification of particular frequencies.
In Byzantine cathedral chant, reverberation was key to invoking the divine presence. She pointed to the exuberant amount of melisma in the repertory, where a single syllable is stretched over multiple notes. In the liquid acoustics of Hagia Sophia, words sung in this way blur.
The recording provides a glimpse of that experience. Phrases chanted in unison leave a ghostly imprint. Rhythmic shudders and grace notes set off blurry squiggles of overlapping echoes. Chords unfurl in reverberant bloom.
– New York Times (Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim)
Zes: The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom
Epiphany - Medieval Byzantine Chant
Toensing: Kontakion for the Nativity of Christ
Hymns of Kassianí / Lingas, Cappella Romana
Discover the world’s earliest music by a female composer: 9th-century nun, poet, and hymnographer Kassianí (Kassía). The same men and women of Cappella Romana who brought you the “Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia” bestseller (43 weeks on Billboard), now sing the earliest music we have by a female composer, including long-suppressed hymns recorded here for the first time. They close with two medieval versions of her beloved hymn for Orthodox Holy Week. Cappella Romana is the world’s leading ensemble in the field of medieval Byzantine chant. Building on its extensive catalogue of this repertoire, Hymns of Kassianí is its 25th release. This is the first of a planned series to record all of Kassianí’s surviving works.
CONTENTS:
1. Lamplighting Psalms, Mode 2 (arr. I. Arvanitis for choir) 05:32
2. Stichera Prosomoia of Christmas (1st set) (arr. I. Arvanitis for choir) 10:11
3. Stichera Prosomoia of Christmas (2nd Set) (arr. I. Arvanitis for choir) 06:53
4. When Augustus Reigned (arr. I. Arvanitis for choir) 04:51
5. Idiomelon from Great Vespers (arr. I. Arvanitis for choir) 03:17
6. Tetraódion (arr. I. Arvanitis for choir) 05:38
7. Idiomelon from Matins (arr. I. Arvanitis for choir) 03:06
8. Tetraódion (Odes 4 and 5) (arr. I. Arvanitis for choir) 06:04
9. On Great and Holy Wednesday at Matins, "Lord, the woman found in many sins" (arr. I. Arvanitis for choir) 08:07
10. Kálophonic stícheron, "Lord, The Woman Found in Many Sins" (arr. I. Arvanitis for choir)
REVIEWS:
Cappella Romana is transforming the dry, brittle pages of ancient Byzantine scores into living musical lyricism with a broad international appeal. Their latest album provides a stunning entrée to the work of Kassianí. This album provides a new tool not only for self-examination but for indulgence in the rich sensual heritage of Byzantine singing. Kassianí’s songs demand to be heard, and we are enriched by listening to them, especially in this authentic and deeply expressive collection.
– ConcertoNet (Linda Holt)
The performances transport the listener back in time to experience this music in stunning sound. Notes and additional information in the accompanying booklet help further bring Kassiani’s music to life by the premiere ensemble performing these ancient Byzantine music. More music from the woman canonized as Kassiani the Hymnographer is forthcoming this year. Highly Recommended!
– Cinemusical (Steven A. Kennedy)
Venice in the East / Lingas, Cappella Romana
A Ukrainian Wedding / Tarnawsky, Cappella Romana
Tavener: Heaven & Earth / Boyer, Cappella Romana
Discover here a performance unlike any other of John Tavener’s Ikon of Light, his landmark setting of the Prayer to the Holy Spirit by the great medieval mystic St. Symeon the New Theologian. Scored for choir and string trio, it is a radiant meditation on the Uncreated Light. Six Orthodox composers collaborated to create Heaven and Earth: A Song of Creation, written for Cappella Romana and its unique musical capacities. Each section of this ecstatic setting in English of the Psalm of the Cosmos (103 lxx) seamlessly unites into a transcendent work Byzantine chant, lush Slavic harmonies, Renaissance counterpoint, Georgian-inspired polyphony, and more. Vocal ensemble Cappella Romana combines passion with scholarship in its exploration of early and contemporary music of the Christian East and West. Its name refers to the medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which embraced Rome and Western Europe as well as the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople (“New Rome”) and its Slavic commonwealth. Heaven and Earth is Cappella Romana’s 27th release.
Pärt: Odes of Repentance / Lingas, Cappella Romana
The Eastern Orthodox understanding of repentance doesn’t dwell on morose sorrow for past transgressions. Instead it focuses on deliverance and optimism: repentance, from the Greek metánoia, is a change of mind, a fundamentally positive redirection. This recording presents Arvo Pärt’s Orthodox choral works for the first time as a service (or office) of supplication (Greek paráklesis, Slavonic molében). The office is built around the singing of a Byzantine poem called a kanon, on this occasion three odes from Pärt’s monumental Kanon Pokajanen (Kanon of Repentance).
Compositions by Pärt likewise comprise the other elements of this office: a Gospel reading marks the center of the service (The Woman with the Alabaster Box) completed by psalmody, Orthodox hymns, and fervent prayers. Pärt’s transcendent “Prayer after the Kanon” eventually gives way to silence, to the prayer of the heart. Cappella Romana transforms hearts and minds through encounters with the sacred musical inheritance of the Christian East and West, bringing to life these ancient and diverse traditions, especially of Byzantium, and their interactions with other cultures. Cappella Romana is devoted to the stewardship of this precious jewel of world culture. Arvo Pärt: Odes of Repentance is Cappella Romana’s 31st release.
REVIEWS:
In this album, the stars, the galaxies, all the wonders of a distant universe seem to touch us through the medium of sound. Whether or not one is knowledgeable about Eastern sacred music, this is an album of supreme artistry to cherish, heed, and enjoy.
Under the direction of Alexander Lingas, Cappella Romana’s Odes of Repentance is a selection of Arvo Pärt’s Orthodox works woven into a service of public and private prayers of supplication and renewal. While Pärt is widely identified with works having an Eastern spiritual flavor, his pedagogical background derives from Western classical music and the musical traditions of the Roman Catholic church. However, since his conversion to Orthodoxy some 50 years ago, the public has come to associate Pärt with music as inspired by Eastern Christianity.
Odes consists of 12 spellbinding tracks which give voice to the human yearning to be cleansed of past mistakes and to make positive changes in one’s future life. As the excellent booklet notes in Church Slavonic and English tell us, these prayers are less an expression of sorrow than they are an affirmation of rebirth. This renascence is expressed eloquently through Pärt’s music in an imaginative flow of melodies, modal harmonies, unexpected twists and turns, and the composer’s unique tintinnabuli technique.
What I found most absorbing in this recording was the variety of musical utterances, the splendid multiplicity of sounds, rhythms and tremors. Something new is lurking around the corner of every measure, sometimes as puzzling as our own contemplated destinies.
The album begins with an Ode from the Triodion and two Slavic Psalms (Psalm 131, “Lord, my heart is not haughty” King James Version [KJV] and the Doxology Psalm 116). The Ode is the first of three in this recording from the Triodion, a liturgical book used in the Eastern Church during Lent. Seven selections from the Kanon of Repentance shine at the heart of the album.
These tracks could not be more different. Slow staccato notes tiptoe under a silvery upper register in the third track while an almost Western sensibility shapes the sound of the fourth (did I hear a touch of Mahler?). The swinging rhythms and unexpected pauses of Kanon Ode 9 remind us that “we aren’t in Kansas anymore”, but, rather, in a world that sometimes stretches far beyond the Western orientation of many listeners.
The album also includes a sung “reading” from the Gospel of Matthew, “The Woman with the Alabaster Box” (“There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.” KJV). Pärt’s music floats effortlessly from the ensemble and melts into the next selection, scattered with little discords.
This is Cappella Romana’s 31st album. While the group specializes in the sacred music of the Christian East and West, it is known largely for its stewardship of the music of Byzantium and the works of Arvo Pärt. Those of us raised in Western cultural traditions have missed much if we have ignored or been deprived of the legacy of Eastern sacred music, old or new. There is a core of authenticity in Pärt’s work that has endeared it, even in his lifetime, to millions around the world.
-- ConcertoNet
