A full-throated and robust celebration of Christmas from the 160-voice Pacific Chorale! “Christmas Time is Here” is a marvelous compilation of colorful arrangements for choir with instrumental accompaniment from brass, harp and percussion. You will find many traditional carols in inventive, original, arrangements culminating in a joyful listening experience!

Pacific Chorale has delighted national and international audiences with concerts of great choral music performed at the highest musical standards since 1968. Under the artistic leadership of John Alexender, Pacific Chorale produces a series of concerts each year at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, where it serves as the resident choir.

Pacific Chorale has received numerous awards, including Chorus America’s prestigious “Margaret Hills Achievement Award for Choral Excellence” and the first national “Education Outreach Award”. Arts Orange County honored the Choral with the 2002 “Outstanding Arts Organization (Music)” Award, and the Orange County Department of Education presented the Chorale with its 2002 “Outstanding Contributions to Education” Award. In 2005, Pacific Chorale received the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Alice Parker Award for adventurous programming.

One of Boston's premier choirs, The Copley Singers draw from British and American traditions with both unusual and familiar arrangements of holiday favorites.

I Wander as I Wander' was recorded at Harvard Memorial Church with the Copley Singers, a professional choir under the direction of Brian Jones (who for many years was the Music Director at Trinity Church, Copley Square in Boston). It includes a number of first recordings and unusual arrangements which utilizes the newly installed but vintage 1932 Aeoline-Skinner organ. The version of 'We Three Kings' alone is worth listening to this biannual recording from Gothic.

Volume 5 of Profil's Günter Wand Edition is devoted to Carl Orff's massive and enormously popular cantata, Carmina Burana, in a stirring radio performance presented with the NDR Sinfonieorchester in 1984. (Profil)

"•The present CD brings together for the first time Marian Borkowski’s entire output of a cappella choral compositions in performances by the Polish Chamber Choir Schola Cantorum Gedanensis directed by Jan Łukaszewski. • Mr. Borkowski has written choral music throughout his compositional career but recent years have witnessed his enhanced interest in the genre. Most of his choral pieces fall under the ‘sacred music’ category, being settings of religious texts, either short fragments or single words."

Includes pavan(s) by William Byrd.
Includes work(s) by various composers.

Xiaogang Ye is regarded as one of today’s leading Chinese composers. The Macau Bride a colourful and evocative ballet based on a story from the 17th century in which Chinese sailor Chon Kou and Portuguese captain’s daughter Maria do Mar fall in love following a chance encounter in Belém. They set sail for Macau, survive a storm and an attack by pirates, and are finally reunited and married in Macau. The Four Poems of Lingnan from the classical literature of ancient Chinese dynasties.

In April 2012, the Schwetzingen Festival celebrates its 60th birthday. On this occasion, a very special oratorio recording from the festival's early years has been selected - a vintage performance of Haydn's "The Seasons", featuring the immortal Fritz Wunderlich!

Haydn wrote his oratorio "The Seasons" between the years 1799 and 1800. The work is based on the poem "The Seasons" by James Thomson in the German translation of the Baron van Swieten. The contemporary descriptions of nature and genre scenes are a work of perfection, insuring the composition's enduring popularity.

This early festival recording is a true time-capsule, recorded on May 24th, 1959 featuring in addition to Wunderlich, the vocal artistry of Agnes Giebel, and Kieth Engen, who together bring Haydn's secular oratorio to vivid life.

A mid-price reissue of the popular 'Fancies' album, collecting together John Rutter's best-known concert works. As well as the virtuosic 'Suite Antique' (for flute, harpsichord and strings), this disc contains the three choral song-cycles 'Five Childhood Lyrics' (for unaccompanied choir), 'When Icicles Hang' and 'Fancies' (both for choir and orchestra).

The newest release from Altissimo! Celebrates the music of Percy Grainger, both familiar and unknown, recorded live in 2011 at a concert given in observation of the 50th anniversary of composer death, performed by the "President's Own" US Marine Band under Colonel Michael J. Colburn in collaboration with the Choral Arts Society of Washington. The title The Music Lover's Grainger was borrowed from one of Grainger's many unfinished publishing projects, reflecting the world premiere recordings featured on the program. These include a version of "The Lost Lady Found", the final number of Lincolnshire Posy, transcribed for band and chorus, based on Grainger's original setting for chorus and orchestra; the original, unpublished band version of "Spoon River", reconstructed from the recently discovered manuscript parts; and a rarely heard, otherworldly harmonization of the "Londonderry Air", the tune of "Danny Boy", scored for band, chorus, and organ. A significant amateur ethnomusicologist, Grainger drew extensively from folksong, collecting several hundred tunes from the English countryside himself. The repertoire recorded here includes English, Irish, Scottish, American, and Danish influences.

A very good and well-conceived musical celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee.

No doubt there will be plenty of recordings issued in 2012 to celebrate - or cash in on, the cynic might say - the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. This is John Rutter’s contribution.
 
You may ask, what have Schubert’s psalm setting or a movement from the Brahms Requiem to do with the British royal family? It may be similarly objected that a piece such as the one by John Tavener has little to do with jubilee celebrations. After all, its sole connection with royalty is that it was sung at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. The answer to such questions lies in the title of the disc. “Music on Royal Occasions” allows John Rutter to cast his net wide. In fact, all but two of the pieces included here have been performed either at a royal wedding or funeral between 1947 - the marriage of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh - and 2011 - the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The two exceptions are the piece by Richard Rodney Bennett, which was written for the diamond wedding anniversary of the Queen and Prince Philip, and the extract from Britten’s opera, written to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. In case you were wondering, the Schubert was sung at the 1960 wedding of Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones while the Brahms was heard at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 2002: I didn’t know those last two facts but the booklet helpfully tells us which piece was heard at which royal event.
 
Both of the new pieces written for the 2011 Royal Wedding are included. Rutter’s own offering is a nice, readily accessible piece. To be frank - and I speak as an admirer of Rutter’s music - it’s a trifle disappointing in that it’s pretty predictably Rutter-ish. Then, to be fair, an occasion such as the Royal Wedding is one when a composer probably ought to write something that is readily appreciated by a worldwide audience. As I wrote recently, when reviewing a disc of music by Paul Mealor, I’ve revised my view of his Ubi caritas since I first heard it. At the Royal Wedding I thought it a somewhat grey piece but hearing it again on the Mealor disc I thought it came over better. However, I clearly recall thinking when I first heard it that it wasn’t a patch on the Maurice Duruflé setting and hearing the two one after the other merely confirms that view. The Mealor piece is nice and sincere but Duruflé’s fluent setting is simply inspired.
 
New to me was the Richard Rodney Bennett piece and I’m delighted to make its acquaintance. Written for unaccompanied choir it’s a very fine setting of the famous passage from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians - ‘If I speak with the tongues of men and angels …’ It receives a v ery fine performance, as do all the other pieces on the programme. It’s enterprising to include this unfamiliar piece and it’s equally enterprising to include the extract from Britten’s Gloriana.
 
Soprano Elin Manahan Thomas is on hand to sing the solos in the Mozart and Handel selections. She sings both very well, though, to my taste, her ornamentation in the Handel is a bit too florid. Incidentally, the Handel is also distinguished by excellent silvery trumpet solos by Simon Cox.
 
The Brahms piece is given in English. I’d much rather hear it in German but I can understand why it’s done in English here since that’s how it’s done as a separate Anglican anthem - and, presumably, that’s how it was given at the Queen Mother’s funeral. The Elgar piece that follows is the prologue to the oratorio The Apostles and it, too, is often heard as a separate anthem. I was mildly disappointed to hear it done here with organ accompaniment - though Andrew Lucas plays splendidly. It’s a bit illogical to do the Brahms with orchestra and the Elgar without; I can only think that the Aurora Orchestra isn’t sufficiently big for Elgar’s scoring.
 
So, to anyone who might glance at this CD on a shelf and dismiss it as ‘just another Jubilee potboiler’ I’d say: think again. I must honest and say that’s what I expected when I saw the disc advertised but I was wrong. This selection is a bit different and a bit more thoughtful and reflective than one might expect. Perhaps one should coin a phrase and say ‘don’t judge a CD by its cover’. The performances are all expertly done and the recorded sound and documentation are very good. This is a very good and well-conceived musical celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee.
 
-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

RUTTER: Feel the Spirit / Birthday Madrigals / SHEARING: Son

You might accurately describe this program as a compilation of "great hits of Christian church music", including as it does Franck's Panis angelicus, Finzi's God is gone up, Mozart's Laudate Dominum, Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine, Lotti's Crucifixus, Howells' Magnificat, and the overrated, overwrought, overlong (and usually excruciatingly-sung) Hear my prayer by Mendelssohn. We also get a couple of Purcell anthems, O God, Thou art my God and Remember not, O Lord, Stanford's glorious motet Justorum animae, Duruflé's tiny masterpiece Ubi caritas et amor, and the choral setting of Elgar's "Nimrod" orchestral variation (Lux aeterna).


In previous reviews, I've praised this excellent choir from Elora, Ontario, and its performances here are first-rate as well. The choir especially shines in the Stanford and Duruflé, singing these oft-recorded motets as well or better than anyone on disc, with every detail of phrasing, breathing, and dynamic change perfectly worked out and executed. The same goes for the Howells, a work we don't hear often enough. We also can appreciate the ensemble's extraordinary discipline in the Purcell pieces, successfully managing the difficult transitions and sustaining the momentum through vocal writing that usually just seems disjointed and cumbersome.


Top billing on the program goes to the ever-popular Mendelssohn, and it's here that the performance falters--not because of the choir or its top-notch organist, Matthew Larkin, but due to soprano soloist Karina Gauvin, who I've admired on several other recordings but who seems shaky, unsure, and less than convincing in this admittedly tedious and difficult solo part. That aside, this is a very satisfying program that choral enthusiasts will embrace, especially when they hear such highlights as Eleanor Daley's refreshingly traditional In Remembrance (from her Requiem), the aforementioned Stanford and Duruflé, and the spectacular rendition of the Elgar, the best version on disc by far. The sound, from the choir's home venue, is full-bodied yet well-balanced, detailed and cleanly articulated. (I'm still hoping that Naxos will include track listings/timings in the CD booklet, not just on the back of the CD box.) [4/7/2006]
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

YL Male Voice Choir was founded in 1883 - 125 years ago - under the auspices of the Helsinki University. Two years later Jean Sibelius became a student at the conservatory in Helsinki, and soon what would become a long and fruitful collaboration began. The present programme includes both a cappella works and works for male choir and orchestra, in which YL is supported by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä. It takes us through a variety of moods and themes: from the brief and very moving 'Sydämeni laulu' - a lullaby for a dead child - to 'Tulen synty' (The Origin of Fire), a re-telling of the ancient Kalevala legend of how fire came into the world, as well as the patriotic sentiments of 'Vapautettu kuningatar' (The Captive Queen) and, of course, the hymn from 'Finlandia', probably Sibelius's most famous composition, here in a choral version.

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Enrique Granados is known for composing some of the most popular Spanish piano masterpieces. Along with these famous compositions, he also wrote a sequence of orchestral works. Marcha de los vencidos, which is the first track featured on this album, evokes the emotion of the painful march of "the defeated" from a lost battle. This album is the first in a series to be released in honor of the centenary of the composer’s death. The compositions on this album are performed by the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pablo Gonzalez.

Dale Warland's group stands on more than 30 years of first-rate performances and acclaimed recordings, and this one from 2002 is a fine representative of its sound and singing style, and of its well-loved Christmas repertoire. It's a warm, unaffected, unforced sound colored by natural resonance rather than the excessive vibrato that defines so many American choirs. The ensemble's legato technique is exemplary, and while all sections of this professional choir are superb, the sopranos are particularly notable for their uniformly lustrous tone. The repertoire titles will be very familiar to Christmas choral music fans, although the particular arrangements may not.


Some of these lesser-known settings include Donna Schultz's Il est né, Kirke Mechem's Fum, fum, fum! and Patapan, and director Warland's own Huron Carol and O little town of Bethlehem (set to the Forest Green tune). There are several fine Stephen Paulus contributions--Gabriel's Message and Three Nativity Carols--along with Jan Sandström's delightfully spooky and increasingly popular version of Es ist ein Ros entsprungen. Traditional favorites such as Wilhousky's Carol of the Bells and Norman Luboff's Joseph Dearest also make welcome appearances, and the disc concludes with Malcolm Sargent's (yes, that Malcolm Sargent) simple and lovely arrangement of Silent Night. Harp, oboe, percussion, and bells add occasional strokes of color, and the sound is ideal. In other words, this is a solidly performed, well-recorded program of the old and new (often combined in the same piece) that will fit nicely into any Christmas music collector's library.
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

To get a sense of the ambition of the Romantic movement, one need only hear Franz Liszt's A Symphony to Dante's Divine Comedy, which represents one high point of exploration that had wide influence, and Alexander Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy, which is characteristic of the period's final efflorescence. These are the major works of this album by Yuri Ahronovitch and the Orchestra of the Alte Oper Frankfurt, with Richard Wagner's Rienzi Overture serving almost as a light interlude between them. While this operatic piece is certainly an important indication of the groundbreaking directions Wagner would take in his later music dramas, it is still a comparatively modest musical example, particularly when compared to the weighty works on either side of it, which leave a clearer impression of Romantic innovations. In terms of orchestration, form, and harmonic advances, the Dante Symphony and Poem of Ecstasy both seem to burn with originality and still have the capacity to surprise modern listeners, where Wagner's overture has sections that hearken back to early 19th century Italian opera and seems at time predictably bombastic. The live performances date from 1983, so the sound quality is not outstanding, and the sound of the orchestra is a little shallow in dimensions. All the same, this CD will be a keeper for Ahronovitch fans, and an interesting offering for beginners exploring Romantic music.

-- All Music Guide

Does music add substance to words or is music inspired by them? Songs of departure and farewell are deeply rooted in the great tradition of British choral music, nourished by ancient myths of testing journeys, wayside transformations and homecomings. The transcendent nature of music and the power of poetry to challenge and alter perceptions of reality – harnessed by English composers over many centuries – flow through a programme that invites contemplation of life and death, of love and loss, creation and eternity. In a journey covering six centuries of musical history, The Sixteen performs a cappella anthems with powerful texts by writers as varied as Edmund Spenser, Christopher Fry and W.H. Auden.

One of the 20th c. greatest interpreters of the works of his contemporary Richard Strauss, W.A. Mozart, and the Austro-German masterworks more generally, the conductor Karl B�hm (1894-1981 was nearly halfway through his long Vienna Philharmonic association when this now historic 1956 Mono recording of Mozart's Requiem, KV626 was realized. The quartet of soloists - Teresa Stich-Randall, Ira Malaniuk, Waldemar Kmentt and Kurt B�hme - among the greatest Mozartian singers of the era, plus the sterling bonus 1957 Beethoven Choral Fantasy, op. 80, insure this disc's import.

Classical Music

The world-class vocal ensemble Chicago a cappella does Christmas choral music fans a real service by daring to create a program entirely of contemporary (primarily within the last 20 or so years) works that defy the usual and predictable holiday concert choices that guarantee instant audience familiarity and gratification (not that there's anything wrong with those beloved, treasured standards!). Most of the works featured here require a bit more-than-usual attention from listeners--the composers and arrangers obviously approached such common texts as "What sweeter music", "Il est Né, le Divin Enfant", "O Come, O Come Emmanuel", "Noël nouvelet", "I wonder as I wander", "Lo Yisa Goy", and "The Huron Carol" with an idea to say something that hadn't already been said. And they do--splendidly. Then we have entirely original pieces by Stephen Paulus (Splendid Jewel--from a 14th-century Italian text), Gwyneth Walker (The Christ-child's Lullaby--inspired by a traditional Hebridean song), Richard Proulx (Prayer of the Venerable Bede--from a text found on the wall of Galilee Chapel in Durham Cathedral), and Danish composer Per Nørgård (En stjerne er sat--a dialogue between the Angel and the shepherds).

It's a tribute to the power of the Christmas story and to its enduring, compelling fascination for composers that the best of them continue--more than 2000 years later--to devote their efforts to writing music to recognize and celebrate the birth of Christ. And we are fortunate to have choirs of this caliber to bring this music to us in a context that presents it most favorably and gives it a permanent presence in our listening repertoire.

Another of the disc's strengths is the sheer variety of music, from the Nigerian setting of the text "For unto us a child is born" by Christian Onyeji, to Rosephanye Powell's "spiritual-like" Who is the baby?, to Yemeni composer Chaim Parchi's alluring Chanukah tune "Aleih Neiri", arranged for choir by Zamir Chorale of Boston founder Joshua Jacobson. The nine singers of Chicago a cappella are absolutely right-on in every respect, and the sound is ideal. This is an unqualified success, a holiday treat, a musical bounty that will both challenge and enliven your Christmastime listening. Highly recommended!

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

GRAMMY Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty explores three icons of 'The Greatest Generation', a turbulent period of adversity and achievement in the United States of America spanning the Great Depression of the 1930s through the Second World War. Mount Rushmore is a dramatic oratorio inspired by the monumental sculpture of four American presidents carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota. Radio City is a symphonic fantasy on the legendary Arturo Toscanini, who conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in live radio broadcasts heard by millions across America. The Gospel According to Sister Aimee is an organ concerto inspired by the rise, fall and redemption of religious celebrity Aimee Semple McPherson. Under the masterful baton of Music Director Carl St. Clair, the renowned Pacific Symphony is joined by Pacific Chorale, one of America's greatest choirs, and GRAMMY Award-winning organist Paul Jacobs.

This recording arguably contains the best representation of the Anglican hymn tradition that's possible to include on one 76-minute CD. Yes, there are hundreds of other candidates--a couple of my favorites are "missing"--but for anyone who knows and loves this vast and varied repertoire that's carried congregations and individual souls through centuries of life's trials and triumphs, prayers and celebrations, private moments and public sharing, these 21 selections will please the ear and stir countless emotions. The list is too long to mention all the hymns here, but among them are "O God, our help in ages past", "The King of love my Shepherd is", "When I survey the wondrous Cross", "A mighty fortress is our God", "Christ the Lord is risen today", "Be thou my vision", "Morning has broken", "Amazing grace", "Christ is made the sure Foundation", and my all-time favorite, "Love Divine, all loves excelling". A pleasant surprise is a hymn with words and music by John Rutter himself. Titled "Eternal God", it was composed in 1999 "with the aim of augmenting the meager stock of hymns that make mention of music . . . as gifts of God." It's a beauty, and it should easily find a home in the standard repertoire. In familiar Rutter programming fashion, the hymns are grouped in categories, such as "Hymns from the Psalms", "Invocations", "Passiontide and Easter", "Folk Hymns", and "Evening Hymns". There are several chants--"Pange lingua", "Veni Creator Spiritus", and "Let all mortal flesh keep silence"--and the arrangements by Rutter are imaginative and appropriate to each hymn's message and musical character. Some are a cappella, some use harp, others are accompanied by brass and/or organ, timpani, and percussion. Rutter's acclaimed Cambridge Singers are in top form and the acoustics of the Church of St. Alban the Martyr, Holborn, are generously responsive. Sing ye heavens, indeed. This is heavenly singing--and heavenly music. --David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Choral Concert: William Ferris Chorale – HOVHANESS, A. / COH

This new release centers around the importance of nighttime rituals from different eras and traditions. This album is the first release by the Georgia State University Singers with their current director Deanna Joseph. The ensemble were 2014 finalists for the American Prize in Choral Performance.