Bach: Oster-Oratorium (Easter Oratorio) & Magnificat in D Ma

This new release is a full album of hymn favorites written by Charles Wesley. Wesley is one of the greatest hymn writers in history, penning over 6,000! Included are titles such as 'Hark! the Herald Angels Sing," "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," and "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing." The Choral Arts Society of Washington, founded in 1965, has experienced monumental success, performing with the national Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony, the Mariinsky Orchestra, and many more. The Chamber Singers is a small ensemble of thrity, launched on the Society's fiftieth anniversary. Scott Tucker, artistic director for the chorus, has prepared choruses for Christoph Eschenbach, Vassilly Sinalsky, Marin Alsop, among others. J. Reilly Lewis, a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory and The Julliard School, is a world renowned organist and is the Music Director of the Cathedral Choral Society.

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Tudor Choir. Conductor: Doug Fullington.

Prized for its amazing variety of sounds and for its technical complexity, the organ has been used to celebrate powerful rulers and religious institutions since its invention in the third century BC. This CD presents some of the earliest music written for organ, both sacred and secular, played by a leader in the field of early performance practice.

Complete Track List:
From the Faenza Codex: Kyrie cunctipotens genitor Deus; Bel fiore dança; Or sus, vous dormés trop.
From the Robertsbridge Codex: Estampie: Retrové; Motet: Firmissime/Adesto/Alleluya.
From the Groningen MS: Asperance; Empris domoyrs.
From the Ileborgh tablature: Praeambulum 4/Mensura 1; Praeambulum 5/Mensura 3; Praeambulum 3/Mensura 2.
Untitled, from the treatise De musica arte.
From the Buxheimer Orgelbuch: Redeuntes in la; Praeambulum super f; Praeambulum super mi; Praeambulum super C; Redeuntes in Idem.
Chanson settings: Praeambulum super d; Adieu mes tres belle; Praeambulum 1 from the Ileborgh tablature; J’ay pris amours; Praeambulum super G; Portugaler; Praeambulum super C; Se la face ay pale.
Kyrie de Sancta Maria Virgine.
Gloria de Sancta Maria Virgine.

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording
Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Empire Brass Quintet.

Choral enthusiasts, arise! Here is a new recording that you can really get excited about. A dozen or so miles north of the twin cities of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, lies the village of Elora. And there, at St. John's Anglican Church, is a choir that stands among the best in North America. Its director, Noel Edison, also is the founder of the acclaimed Elora Festival and its Elora Festival Singers, another world-class professional ensemble. The singing on this disc, which includes Psalm settings for the Anglican service, a couple of anthems with Psalm texts, and service music for Good Friday known as The Reproaches, gives further confirmation of Canada's second-to-none stature in the world of choral singing. During the six years that I lived in Kitchener (in the pre-Elora Festival days) I discovered and participated in a choral music tradition that's not widely known or appreciated outside of Canada. Mostly centered in the Anglican churches, it breeds generations of singers who not only are rooted in English church music but also, because of the country's relatively small population and brief musical history, are open to all the world's music, and especially to contemporary works. Luckily for us, Naxos has found this outstanding St. John's choir and I hope we can look forward to many more recordings.


Of course, this program is of a fairly specialized nature. Anglican chant--a stylized singing of liturgical texts, in this case the psalms, to an original, fully harmonized tune--is not for everyone. But over the centuries many of the world's finest composers have lent this form their interest and inspiration--and many lesser-known but highly competent organists and choir directors have contributed their own often strikingly imaginative efforts. If sung properly, as they are here, and if the musical settings are well chosen--also the case on this recording--then listeners are in for a treat. There are too many highlights to single them all out, from Charles Hylton Stewart's Psalms 23 and 103, to David Willcocks' Psalm 131, Hubert Parry's Psalm 84, Ivor Atkins' Psalm 149, Edison's own Psalm 121, and the resounding closer, Stanford's Psalm 150. More famously represented are Edward Bairstow's luscious Lamentations, and the anthems by Herbert Sumsion (They that go down to the sea in ships) and Herbert Howells (Like as the hart, in a lovely, highly romantic rendition with triplets stretched to the limit and beyond). Lennox Berkeley's wonderful The Lord is my Shepherd, so simple and perfect in its expression of the text, deserves wide recognition, and former Gloucester Cathedral organist John Sanders' sensational setting of The Reproaches alone gives reason to own this disc. The well-balanced, luminous sound gives all the immediacy and presence the music requires.
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Award-winning composer Adolphus Hailstork is a vibrant communicator whose music speaks directly and subtly. His Symphony No 1 was commissioned for festival performance and is imbued with the lyrical and vivid qualities of which he is a master. The Three Spirituals are richly affecting orchestral settings originally written for pipe organ. Fanfare on Amazing Grace is nobly conceived and An American Port of Call evokes the bustle inspired by Norfolk, Virginia. Whitman’s Journey is a hymn of hope for those setting out on ‘the seas of life.’

The Ecclesiastical Year in Gregorian Chant

Until recently the role of women as composers and performers of both sacred and secular music during the Middle Ages has been seriously underestimated. This disc, sung by the all-female group Musica Ficta.

Her nickname "La Superba" can be comprehended by any non-Spanish speaker, and the passion of this Spanish soprano translates into every language. Her talent for shifting from power to delicacy is on display all across these 2 CDs as she performs pieces from Verdi's La Traviata and Rigoletto ; Puccini's La Boheme ; Wagner's Tristan Und Isolde ; Verdi's Requiem Mass (CD debut), and more!

Martinu: Epic of Gilgamesh (The)

Selection includes Introduction about the premiere performance of "The Birth of Christ".

Includes christmas carol(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Musica Ficta Vocal Ensemble Copenhagen. Conductor: Bo Holten.
Includes christmas song(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Musica Ficta Vocal Ensemble Copenhagen. Conductor: Bo Holten.

Steal Away: The African American Concert Spiritual explores the very essence of America's national heritage through the compelling sincerity of the Spiritual. With visceral illustrations of joy, pain, sorrow, and hope of a people yearning for a better life, Seraphic Fire takes a fresh look at this simple and candid expression of the human spirit.

This is the follow-up Christmas recording to Seraphic Fire's 2012 Grammy-nominated A Seraphic Fire Christmas. This recording includes four world premiere recordings ('Gitanjali Chants,' 'Little Child in a Manger,' 'Nino de Rosas' and 'Silent Night').

The calendar year 2023 marks the 90th birthday of Krzysztof Penderecki (1933–2020), one of the most prominent 21st Century Polish composers. Sacred themes and texts surround the creative work of Penderecki, including many of his large-scale works. This album consists of the majority of his impressive sacred a cappella choral works which are mainly written in Latin. These deeply religious choral works are modern classics which will, no doubt, remain in the choral repertoire for years to come.

REVIEW:

Penderecki’s sacred choral oeuvre is usually worthy of the best efforts singers are willing to bring to it. And here we have the self-recommending proposition of one of the world’s finest choirs bringing that music to life in the warm, reverberant space of St John’s Church in Riga, Latvia. The Ondine engineering makes it an even more emphatic win.

— American Record Guide

Children's Songs

Mozart: Requiem, K. 626 & Charpentier: Te Deum

Fauré: Requiem, Op. 48

The “Vokalhelden” [vocal heroes] from the Education Program of the Berlin Philharmonic interpret 22 children’s songs from throughout all of Europe in arrangements by Peter Schindler. + The songs are performed in their respective languages or in a German transcription. + This CD is part of the “Lieder Project” an effort that promotes and benefits singing with children. + It emphasizes quality and is designed especially for children. + Proceeds from the Lieder Project are donated to causes furthering singing with children.

Classical Music

The Austrian composer Joseph Marx was for much of his long career a musical authority of world renown. Within his large output, his songs were amongst his greatest musical achievements, unifying romanticism, impressionism and expressionism with revolutionary results. Many thought him the rightful successor to Hugo Wolf and yet today the name and music of Joseph Marx have fallen into obscurity. The 'Marx style' is unmistakable. It is characterised by a highly personal compositional technique displaying a polyphonic harmony of full sonority, allied to asterly contrapuntal skills, and frequent key changes which occur apparently at random but are in fact distributed with utter logic. The music strikes the listener as timeless, refreshingly modern and, above all, surprising, able to exploit tonal means of expression to the full and raise the spirits of every true lover of melody. Chandos' Record of the Month sees Ji?í B?lohlávek conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the long overdue premiere of four choral works, along with the first complete recording of Marx's orchestral songs for soprano, performed by Christine Brewer. Three works are of particular note. Herbstchor an Pan, a single-movement cantata written in 1911, lasts very nearly twenty minutes and was Marx's first, and for many years only, orchestral composition. It has inexplicably fallen into oblivion in the past five decades. However, it has turned out to be one of the masterpieces of its entire era. Ein Neujahrshymnus (A Hymn for the New Year) is richly orchestrated and demonstrates the profound romantic vein of Joseph Marx; it is here performed for the first time in its orchestral version. This disc represents not only the first recording of Berghymne but also its world premiere performance. We are indebted to the Marx Society for their efforts to promote this composer, and allowing the wider public to hear the outstanding quality of his works. The greatness of the music is indisputable and this recording will make for an important addition to the classical music catalogue. Also available: Joseph Marx - Piano Works: CHAN 10479

A choir of young Dominicans conducted by Father Thomas sings solemn vespers in Latin in honor of St. Dominic, founder of the order, in the Hamburg Dominican church of St. Sophien. The order, which celebrates it's 800th anniversary in 2016, has a long tradition in chorale singing. The hymns and anthems on this CD continue to be sung by members of Dominican order in their liturgical prayer worldwide. The Latin chants are in exciting dialogue with the organ improvisations by Thierry Mechler.

The Orpheus Vokalensemble, which consists of professional singers, makes a belated but essential contribution to this Schumann year with the present survey of his choral music.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi (b. 1963) writes some of today's more innovative choral music. It's not only creatively interesting but it also maintains the qualities of tonal/harmonic accessibility and text-centered immediacy that allows it to register with a broad spectrum of listeners. His collections of Shakespeare Songs, More Shakespeare Songs, and No More Shakespeare Songs? show a composer at once in love with his subject and fully in tune with his audience--and one clearly in possession of a sense of humor!

On this recording we hear a profoundly serious work, in memory of the victims of a terrible Baltic Sea tragedy in September, 1994, in which the luxury ferry Estonia sank in a storm, killing 852 passengers. Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae incorporates elements of Psalm 107 ("They that go down to the sea in ships...") with news accounts of the disaster (taken from a Latin-language Finnish radio broadcast), employing dramatic, rich-textured choral utterances (including the whispered prayers of the opening and closing bars) along with chant-inspired passages and an occasional folk-song-like melody, all of which culminates in an extended passage of beautiful and often surprising harmonies, ideally defining the text at the end of the Psalm: "He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still..." This is a moving and memorable work, one that these choirs perform with care and confidence under Charles Bruffy's artful direction.

After this solid performance, it's puzzling why Bruffy's rendition of Frank Ticheli's setting of Sara Teasdale's poem There will be rest is so dreadfully slow (completely ignoring the composer's clear markings), a strange deconstruction that robs this gorgeous and well-loved piece of its essential harmonic flow and structural coherence. Oh well, these world-class singers follow their conductor easily, unfazed by the exceptional demands of breath control and balance this pace requires--but still, what's the musical point?

Frank Martin's Mass for double choir has been recorded many times--and mostly very well--and this is another fine rendition of a work that seems to register its "classic" credentials more impressively every time you hear it. René Clausen's In pace, cut from the same vibrant-colored harmonic cloth as the Ticheli, is another work that deserves repertoire status, and again, Bruffy's singers perfectly capture its nuances of texture and dynamics and give full measure to the big sonorities. The complementary acoustics of Camelback Bible Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona, expertly recorded for this hybrid SACD, complete a program that should have strong appeal to all choral music fans.

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com