Includes work(s) by Healey Willan. Ensemble: Elora Festival Singers. Conductor: Noel Edison. Soloist: Matthew Larkin.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagner’s birth. This CD clearly shows Wagner’s ambition to vie with Beethoven, manifesting the inclination towards big and boundless writing. Tobias Koch, one of the most versatile keyboard instrumentalists of his generation, reproduces Wagner’s original sound in brilliant fashion.

Choral Music - Eybler, J. / Herbeck, J.R. / Salieri, A. / Mo

This new release, featuring the recording premiere of his complete chorale cantatas, is in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of composer Max Reger’s death. Although raised Catholic, Reger had an early fascination with Protestant music, much to the concern of his family. Regers chorale contributions to the Protestant church cannot be overlooked, and he submitted many compositions to the monthly Monatschrift fur Gottesdienst und kirchliche Kunst.

Impressive throughout … an excellent way to explore his output.

This is a Naxos compilation of works by Thomas Tallis, originally recorded for a range of other discs, performed by the Oxford Camerata under the direction of Jeremy Summerly. The disc features a range of works, in both Latin and English texts, including shorter anthems and mass settings and more extended works. O Sacrum Convivium, written for Elizabeth 1st, features smooth flowing lines and gentle dissonances, and sets the scene for the rest of the disc, with the Oxford Camerata’s blended vocal tone full of expression and resonance. Audivi vocem features plainchant-style sections and choruses, while Discomfort them, O Lord is based on repeated sequences and has a complex monophonic style. Loquebantur variis linguis is a faster work, with imitative entries and rich polyphonic writing interspersed with unison chant settings.

The Sanctus from the Mass for Four Voices is a beautiful setting with strongly characterful word setting, including a bright, major key Gloria and Hosanna. I call and cry to thee, O Lord is an English setting of O Sacrum Convivium and it is interesting to hear the effect of a change of language. The Lamentations of Jeremiah are presented in two separate sets. Set I is well paced, with tempo changes well handled and clearly defined sections. Set II has a beautifully calm and expressive opening, with individual lines entering one by one to build up a stunning five part choral sound. This slow paced music gradually unfolds and provides one of the highlights of the disc.

Videte miraculum features some wonderfully dissonant harmonies, with tension and release an important element of the interaction between the parts. Another slow-moving work, this has a contemplative feel, using mostly simple rhythms and alternating between monophonic writing and polyphony.

The disc ends with the impressive forty-part motet Spem in alium, arguably one of Tallis’s most well-known and dazzling works, with eights choirs of five voices combining to create an elaborate tapestry of sound. Harmonic shifts come like waves, and the full force of all forty voices in the tutti sections has a sense of powerful expression. It is hard to hear definition in the individual parts in this recording (although some come through better than others) and it is difficult to capture the effect of this piece on a recording; this is one piece where a live performance holds an extra dimension, especially if the choirs can be separated around the audience. Nevertheless, the overall effect works well and this is an enjoyable recording.

The choir is impressive throughout this disc, although the blend of voices varies between tracks (presumably because the recordings were made at different times with slight alterations to personnel). Hearing this selection of works by one composer gives a fascinating insight into the range of Tallis’ music, both in terms of compositional style and textural use of the choir. His vocal writing has a sense of naturalness and paved the way for generations of composers after him, defining a style and creating a lineage of British choral music. This disc serves as an excellent way to explore his output, with some beautiful singing from the Oxford Camerata.

-- Carla Rees, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Seraphic Fire has assembled a collection of music with which the ensemble has a visceral, tenacious connection. This self-titled recording contains Seraphic Fire signature works that have brought the ensemble to prominence eleven seasons after it's founding. Led by Founder and Artistic Director Patrick Dupre Quigley, Seraphic Fire brings the best ensemble singers from around the country to perform repertoire ranging from Gregorian chant to newly commissioned works.

This stunning recording by Grammy-nominated Seraphic Fire is an expertly informed collection of some of Western music’s purest compositions.

Great Classical Masterpieces from Bestselling Recordings 1987-2012. All of these bestselling titles come from the first 10 years of the label and feature our most successful artists. Some are still recording for us, including violinist Takako Nishizaki, the co-owner of the Naxos label; Jeno Jandó, who is busy recording Bartók's piano music; Jeremy Summerly and his Oxford Camerata; and Antoni Wit whose new recordings with the Warsaw Philharmonic are among the fi nest in our catalogue. Norbert Kraft is still active as producer of the Naxos guitar series and much of our chamber music. Although he no longer records for Naxos, Stephen Gunzenhauser is still active as a conductor. Sadly, Zdenek Košler to whom we owe many great recordings with the Slovak Philharmonic passed away a few years ago. Others have retired or disappeared altogether from the musical scene. Therefore, in a way, this compilation is a tribute to all the artists who made the success of Naxos possible in the early days of the label. - Klaus Heymann [Founder of Naxos]

CLASSICAL MOMENTS 3: Classical Music to Relax to

Written towards the end of his life, Cimarosa’s Dixit Dominus of 1797 numbers among his greatest compositions. A sacred composition on a large scale, it features three soloists, a four-part choir, and an orchestra including four pairs of wind instruments. The sequencing of the solo and choir parts employs a compositional-technical method that had proved itself for more than 150 years for the setting of sacred works based on verses.

Domenico Cimarosa contributed significantly to the development of the opera during the second half of the eighteenth century. He was held in great esteem by his contemporaries, above all by Haydn and Mozart, not only because of his eighty operas but also his sacred works endowing the traditional church style with his trademark grace and sweetness of tone.

Following a critically acclaimed recording of music from the Eton Choirbook, More Divine Than Human (AV 2167), The Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford returns with a second volume from the vast collection of 15th-century English sacred music, Choirs of Angels. The works range from John Browne's richly scored eight-part O Maria salvatoris mater, the first piece in the Eton Choirbook, to William Cornysh's exquisite miniature Ave Maria mater Dei, the choirbook's shortest work. The compositional range in the Eton Choirbook demands extraordinary virtuosity from its performers, and Stephen Darlington and his choir of men and boys do this glorious music tremendous justice. "hugely appealing ... natural, spacious, rich, expressive performances." - The Sunday Times "They do a fantastic job and the soundworld is terrific." - BBC Music Magazine

Commemorating the quatercentenary of Chapel Royal composer Orlando Gibbons's death in 1625, The Choir of HM Chapel Royal, Hampton Court and The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble join forces to present a programme that surveys the wide range of Gibbons's output. Featuring the entire Second Service, plus verse & full anthems alongside hymns, fantasias and dance tunes, this recording celebrates not only the composer's legacy but also the continuing historical unity in performance of voices and instruments at the Chapel Royal over several hundred years.

Rheinberger composed his Cantus Missae in 1878, during his tenure as court chapel master to King Ludwig II. The work bears witness to his successful reconciliation of the conflicting artistic currents of his time, and it is precisely this perfect equilibrium that has rendered it timeless. The Mass captivates with it's melodic, often almost Lied like character; yet, on closer listening, the music reveals a striking modernity for it's era. Nana Forte's Libera me was written almost 150 years after Cantus Missae. It is a spiritual drama in which the composer draws on the traditional techniques of double choir writing: she let's the choirs interlock contrapuntally or overlap in contrasting layers, as in the passage "tremens factus sum ego" ("trembling has overtaken me"). Frank Martin kept the manuscript of his Mass for Double Choir in a drawer for nearly forty years, regarding it as something solely between himself and God. In sound and musical language, the Mass is unmistakably a work of the twentieth century, yet one hears echoes of Gregorian chant and senses that the composer consciously places himself within the centuries old tradition of double choir composition and the symbolic world of Mass settings. Martin's work is shaped by the tension between tradition and modernity, personal confession and doctrinal expectation; but rather than seeking a "golden mean," he approaches these themes as a seeker and questioner. The result is one of the most highly regarded Mass settings of the twentieth century.

One of the world's leading experts on Marcel Dupré, Tobias Frank, joins forces with his ensemble Vox ad hoc to reveal a previously undiscovered facet of the French composer: vocal works for soloist or choir, with piano or organ accompaniment or purely a cappella. Until recently, these outstanding pieces had remained quietly overlooked in the archives of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

This recording brings together recent choral works by British-Swiss composer Jessica Ulusoy-Horsley exploring sound, silence, and the spaces between them, performed by Tenebrae under Nigel Short. The programme includes the work Engelsmusik, inspired by writings on angelic music which draw on texts by Rumi, Greek liturgy, and spiritual philosophy. At it's centre is the large-scale work The 99 Names, setting Arabic and Aramaic texts from Islamic and Christian traditions, and finishing with Cycle of Peace, responding to contemporary conflict. Together, the works examine listening, stillness, and shared spiritual experience across cultures.

Over the course of the last 15 years, David Lang and The Crossing, the Grammy-winning chamber choir conducted by Donald Nally, have crafted a body of work that stands apart from the rest for it's profound spiritual connection to our shared sense of humanity-through our stories, our myths, our beliefs, and our dreams. The sense of senses is a milestone that celebrates this connection, across time and space, to deliver a message that music can be a benevolent force for change if we only take the time to listen. "This album is a collection of works that capture the intimate side of The Crossing's relationship with David Lang," Nally explains. "Only two were written for us, yet the others reflect a shared world view, a common idea about sound and community, and a collective focus on our reason for singing. David's thoroughly considered thoughts on 'why we do this' have influenced The Crossing's perpetually reexamined thoughts on that question: how to communicate deep feelings, absent of ego."

SOMM Recordings is proud to present The Mira Ensemble, taking it's name from the Latin word meaning "wonderful" or "admirable" and comprising professional singers from across the UK. The group was founded in 2025 to champion the extensive, yet little known and often-neglected body of music for upper voices. Their debut disc focuses on the upper-voices repertoire by Herbert Howells, and it features entirely premiere recordings that shine a light on a rarely discussed part of his output. The ensemble is directed by Newcastle-born conductor, composer, academic, editor, and orchestrator Tom Edney. They're accompanied by pianist Nick Salwey, who has performed live on BBC Radio 3, ITV, Channel 4, and Classic FM. Nick taught at Oxford, Eton College, and Winchester College, where he was Head of Piano from 2005 to 2025, and where he continues to teach and work as accompanist. Herbert Howells (1892-1983) composed a significant body of lyrical, often pastoral partsongs characterized by rich harmony and expressive text-setting. Early partsongs featured on this disc include The Shepherd, a setting of William Blake; A Croon from an old cradle song; An Old Man's Lullaby by Elizabethan Thomas Dekker; and A Tinker's Song, an anonymous old London song from 1667. Two unison songs from the 1920s-an old rhyme The Wonderful Derby Ram and a Spanish Lullaby-hint at Howells's own childhood singing experiences. A Golden Lullaby is another setting of An Old Man's Lullaby by Dekker, and Howells's different approaches to voicing are striking. My Master Hath a Garden, on an anonymous text, reflects the influence of Gustav Holst, while the old rhyme Sing Ivy evokes some of Holst's folk song arrangements-though it shifts midway to a sound reminiscent of Tudor keyboard music. Howells's interest in dance forms grew from his fascination with English Tudor music, and he adopted a Sarabande in setting a text by the late-Elizabethan Thomas Campion, Tune thy Music. In the early 1930s, Howells dedicated a setting of one of Walter de la Mare's miniatures, Bunches of Grapes, to his two children. In similarly light-hearted vein, Sea Urchins with texts by Gladys Balcomb describes a seaside holiday across ten movements. Two poetic meditations on Elizabeth texts-Sweet Content by Robert Greene and To Music Bent by Campion-also come from this decade. Howells lost his nine-year-old son to polio in 1935, and Piping down the Valleys Wild-William Blake's depiction of a divine child asking the piper to continue to play-is the bittersweet offering of a grieving parent. Howells composed fewer upper-voices partsongs after the Second World War. Featured among these are The Key of the Kingdom, another de la Mare text adapted from an old rhyme; Pink Almond, with a text by the Irish writer Katharine Tynan, in Sarabande form; and the delightful A Christmas Carol, to a text by 17th century writer George Wither, composed on Christmas Day in 1957.

Imperial College Chamber Choir and conductor Patrick Allies present This Place, a beautifully-curated programme of choral works exploring themes of home, belonging, spiritual refuge, love, respite and peace. While the theme relates principally to the repertoire, it also acknowledges the chamber choir's own position within Imperial College London, and the musical home that it's members find in the choir.

14.4415

On 13 April 1716, the long-awaited heir to the Habsburg throne was born. All of Europe rejoiced, for it was expected that the Spanish War of Succession so recently ended would not rekindle into another disastrous conflict. The city of Frankfurt am Main, where emperors were elected and crowned, marked the event on 17 May with a huge celebration, and Georg Philipp Telemann contributed two large-scale works for it. The performances in the Barfüsserkirche and on the Römerberg were part of a day-long series of festive activities with hours of carillons ringing and hundreds of cannon salutes-but it was music director Telemann who emerged victorious in the end. Understandably so, as the first recording of the two festive pieces reveals. These two gems further enrich our label's Telemann catalogue.

Classical Music

Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 15-17 October 1989 Producer(s) Tim Oldham Sound Engineer(s) Anthony Howell Robert Menzies (Assistant)

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensembles: Soviet Red Army Chorus, Red Army Band. Conductor: Victor Fedorov.

Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 15-17 February 1998 Producer(s) Martin Compton Sound Engineer(s) Anthony Howell