Die Wiltener Sangerknaben in der Innsbrucker Hofkirche

With this second volume of Tosti’s songs, Brilliant Classics takes listeners just half-way through a prodigious, career-long output, in which the key-notes are unfailingly memorable melody, lively charm and a gift for story-telling that rivals the very greatest song-writers past and present, from Schubert to Dylan. Many of his songs have never been recorded, so this set makes a unique contribution to the catalogue. There are a few French songs on Vol 2, reflecting Tosti’s great popularity in Paris, but most of the texts here are by Italian poets, mostly contemporaries such as D’Annunzio and Panzacchi. The album works chronologically through the decade 1886-1895, during which time he was singing teacher to the English royal family. Perhaps in deference to his pupils, there are songs by the likes of Longfellow and Weatherly: the release concludes with his delicately wistful setting of In the Hush of the Night. The first volume of this extraordinary project on Brilliant Classics won wide critical praise. ‘All the singers are careful over nuances,’ remarked MusicWeb International. ’Tosti’s songs have, through the years, been bawled out of recognition by leather-lunged tenors, and it is a blessing to hear so many beautiful pianissimos and diminuendos in this repertoire. The accompaniments are discreet and the recording is well-balanced and natural-sounding.’ This release will be an essential acquisition for all lovers of art-song.

In this recital of Alnæs’ atmospheric songs, Eriksen, whose playing of Alnæs’ piano works can be heard on an earlier Toccata Classics CD, returns to his music in the company of Solvang, one of Norway’s best mezzos. This CD marks the 140th anniversary of Alnæs’ birth and the 80th of his death and includes a number of word premiere recordings.

REVIEW:

Solvang’s lyric soprano is attractive and colorful, and she is capable of floating some lovely pianos. Very rarely she pushes it too much and the tone turns hard, but this is a minor flaw in a disc of lovely singing. Eriksen is clearly as much of an Alnæs expert as we have today—having recorded a disc of piano pieces—and he and Solvang are on the same wavelength throughout. One could not ask for better performances. The recorded sound is a bit too “airy” for my tastes—but one gets used to it quickly enough. Very informative and high-quality program notes along with complete texts and translations round out the production.

-- Fanfare

Judith Clurman conducts her acclaimed chorus, Essential Voices USA, in Holiday Harmonies: Sounds of Christmas, the ensemble’s third recording for Sono Luminus. This holiday disc includes premiere recordings of new vibrant arrangements of seasonal favorites and new works that were written for the disc by some of America’s finest composers. Mezzo Soprano Jamie Barton, Soprano Maureen McKay, Pianist Tedd Firth, and Harpist Stacey Shames are featured performers. Traditional repertoire includes: “Angels We Have Heard on High” (arr. David Chase), “O Holy Night” (arr. Ryan Nowlin), “Silent Night” (arr. Tedd Firth and Judith Clurman), “The Virgin’s Slumber Song” (Max Reger), and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” (adaptation Judith Clurman). New works include: “Whispered and Revealed” (Nico Muhly), “Love Came Down” (Jennifer Higdon) and “Merry Christmas Wishing Well” (Gene and Lorraine Gilroy, arr. Michael Gilbertson).

This collection draws together many of the much-loved and most-requested shorter choral works by John Rutter. Gathered from across the Collegium catalogue, 'Be Thou My Vision' includes all of the church anthems and other sacred pieces for which Rutter is justly famous, representing for the first time a handy compendium of the best-loved Rutter works in their definitive performances by the Cambridge Singers, directed by the composer. 'The recordings of Rutter conducting his own music with the Cambridge Singers remain gleaming beacons of irrepressible music-making.' - BBC Music Magazine

Classical Music

Classical Music

The music of the Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky (1895–1968) is familiar in his home country but sorely neglected abroad. Lyatoshynsky’s songs are neglected even there: this anthology of his best romantsiy for low voice and piano contains many first recordings.
The songs meld intense Scriabinesque expressionism with elements of Ukrainian folksong in a language that embraces both the lyrical and the dramatic. His setting of Shelley’s Ozymandias, with its warning of the impermanence of power, was a brave act in the Soviet Union of 1924. The booklet contains full sung texts, with English translations by Russian-music expert Anthony Phillips, who also provides an extensive introduction to Lyatoshynsky.

REVIEW:

Ukrainian composer Boris Liatoshinsky (1895–1968) studied with Gliere at the Kiev Conservatory and then became a life-long member of that faculty. Death, melancholy, dread, and grief over unrequited love are the subjects of his chosen texts by mostly Ukrainian poets Ivan Bunin, Alexei Pleshcheyev, Leonid Pervomaiski, Maxim Rylsky, and Volodymyr Sosyura as well as Heine and Shelley. The mood of his songs is consistently somber.

The program of works from 1922 to 1951 is ordered mostly chronologically. His earliest compositions show an evident love of Schumann, Chopin, and Borodin; but the works heard here show a Scriabinesque expressionist style that reflects the cultural chaos following WW I and the Russian Revolution. His 1924 setting of Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ with its image of the impermanence of power shows his courage and conviction in the face of Socialist Realism as Stalin was consolidating his stranglehold over the Soviet Union.

The performances here are broodingly powerful. Savenko’s lyric bass is a good fit for these songs, written specifically for bass (or low voice). With smooth legato singing and well applied dynamics, his performance gives full expression to their mournful nature.

-- American Record Guide

The vast power of the Royal Courts of England and Scotland may be long gone but the sumptuous sounds of their worship are not lost. This disc brings together music of some of the most outstanding but now little-known composers of the 15th and 16th centuries, and introduces a major new work by one of this century's most remarkable composers. Robert Carver's mesmeric setting of the devotional text O bone Jesu has long been admired and has now proved an inspiration to James MacMillan who has chosen with this special commission for The Sixteen, to clothe the same text in his own musical language of reflective beauty.

Fans of Benjamin Britten and of The Sixteen will rejoice at this reissue of material from the choir's acclaimed three-volume Britten series originally recorded for the now-defunct Collins label. (Presumably all of the music from the complete set eventually will appear under the Sixteen's new Coro emblem.) If you know the earlier recordings, you'll quickly notice that the program here is different from the original configurations: there are five selections from Collins' Vol. 3--Hymn to the Virgin, A Hymn of Saint Columba, Hymn to Saint Peter, Jubilate Deo, Festival Te Deum; three from Vol. 2--Rejoice in the Lamb; Antiphon; Te Deum in C; and the Hymn to Saint Cecilia from Vol. 1.

Recorded performances of Britten's choral music don't get any better than this. No one will argue that this choir was/is capable of singing anything, and singing it as well as or better than anyone--and these Britten pieces are made for exuberant, exultant, exacting singing that the Sixteen can do without a blip, a glitch, or the slightest faltering step. From the fawning, devotional A Hymn to the Virgin to the wild and glorious Rejoice in the Lamb, this is music most perfectly created and most grandly and emphatically presented. A first-class effort; a classic.

--David Vernier

Works:
Hymn to the Virgin
A Hymn of Saint Columba
Hymn to Saint Peter
Antiphon
Te Deum in C
Jubilate Deo
Hymn to Saint Cecilia
Festival Te Deum
Rejoice in the Lamb

Classical Music

RENAISSANCE AM RHEIN • Singer Pur Ens • OEHMS OC 820 (66:39 Text and Translation)


Music of JEAN DE LATRE, ZANGIUS, PEVERNAGE, HAGIUS, PEUDARGENT, JOHANNES DE CLEVE, LASSUS, MANGON, CASTRO, ANON


The occasion for this recorded program was an exhibit in Bonn (just concluded) devoted to the art and culture of the Renaissance as it flourished in the lower Rhineland, from Liège and Aachen to Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Cleves. The program mixes seven Latin-texted works, some with unfamiliar texts, with eight secular songs in German or French. The works are mostly obscure, but certainly one of the most obscure is O Dee cunctipotens by Martin Peudargent (active at the court of Cleves), which the notes describe as “one of the few works [of his] that has not been released on CD.” Since I couldn’t find his name in any record catalog before this, this seemed strange, but it turns out that a full SACD of his music appeared on an obscure German label a couple of years ago. Petit Jean de Latre, who served in Liège, had a whole LP devoted to his sixth book of chansons ( Fanfare 7:4), but none of his three selections here duplicate that program. These composers are poorly represented on discs, nothing here being duplicated. Such names as Konrad Hagius and Johannes de Cleve are totally obscure. Even the single Lassus motet seems to be a first recording.


Singer Pur, graduates of the Regensburg choir school (with a soprano added), have been recording regularly. This is one of their more imaginative programs, interesting for its variety, the rarity of the selections, and the special occasion that resulted in its production. Pevernage’s Salve Regina is interesting for its alternation between the solemn chant setting and polyphony, considerably more than simply intoning the first phrase in chant. Lassus’s meditation on death, O mors quam amara , is exquisite. The program ends on a lighter note with two German songs, hard to appreciate fully in the German dialect without English (only the Latin texts are translated into German). The Bonn museum exhibit focused on art and culture as well as music, emphasizing the distinct character of the Renaissance in northern climes, inconsistent with the familiar Italian models. This program will not duplicate anything in your collection.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

The Lithuanian Vladas Jakubenas (1904–78) is one of a lost generation of Baltic composers. A student of Schreker in Berlin, he returned home to help build the musical culture of his country. But the Nazi invasion and Soviet occupation drove him into exile and, after five years in refugee camps in Germany, he settled in Chicago, playing an important role in the Lithuanian diaspora in North America. These choral songs show the deep identification of his late-Romantic style with the folk-music of the land he was forced to leave behind.

Bach, J.S.: Vocal Music (1953-1959)

Stunning performances of the complete choral works (to date) of award-winning Composer Frank Ticheli, “one of the most interesting and attractive composers on the scene today” (Lawrence A. Johnson). This program offers many world premiere recordings and a broad variety of lovely and accessible choral compositions. The superb renditions by the Pacific Chorale with the Pacific Symphony or the John Alexander Singers are all under the assured baton of John Alexander.

Showcasing Metropolitan Opera and GRAMMY® Award-winning mezzo-soprano Cooke, and the Colburn Orchestra led by Gilad. The recording includes Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, the aria ‘Am I in Your Light?’ from Doctor Atomic by John Adams, Chausson’s sweeping Poème de l'amour et de la mer, all with full orchestra, and two Handel arias, ‘Scherza infida’ and ‘Ombra mai fu’ performed with chamber orchestra. The members of the Colburn Orchestra create a distinct orchestral sound (a great one), and Maestro Gilad elicits sensitive and lyrical interpretations of the repertoire. This recording won the Audio Oasis Award even before it was released at THE SHOW in Newport, 2012.

Palestrina's Fourth Book of Motets was dedicated to his patron Pope Gregory XIII and published in Rome in 1584. He took as his text The Song of Songs (also known as The Song of Solomon). The 29 motets, written in an age of religious tumult and Counter-Reformation, evoke the love of Christ in devotional music of chamber-like refinement and joy. This recording also includes plainchant antiphons related to the texts, and the motets Afferentur Regi and Quam pulchri sunt gressus tui.

The Kyiv Patriarchate, established in 1992, was denounced by Moscow and the schism between the two Orthodox churches has become part of the geopolitical confrontation between Russia and Ukraine since 2014, even more so since Moscow Patriarch Kyrill has made warlike speeches. All Composers here were born in Ukraine. [Texts will be online at https://altocd. Com/product/alc1478/]

The conductor Jérémie Rhorer is today regarded as one of the finest interpreters of the music of Mozart in general and his operas in particular. After conducting Die Entfu?hrung aus dem Serail at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2015, he performed it again at a memorable concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in September of that year with his orchestra, Le Cercle de l’Harmonie. It is this exceptional event, captured in a live recording conveying all the dramatic intensity of the opera, that we present today.

‘In Die Entfu?hrung, Mozart presents a completely unprecedented vision of the singspiel, with highly developed ensembles and musical continuity at a time when contemporary spectators were expecting the standard alternation between spoken and sung sections’, says Jérémie Rhorer in the interview that accompanies the discs. That musical dramaturgy lies at the centre of this interpretation, which is served by an outstandingly homogeneous cast.

This recording launches a series of recordings of concerts at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and a collaboration between Alpha Classics and Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, who will continue to place their excellence at the service of the great masterpieces of Mozart.

I'd aim to convert music-loving friends who resist Bach cantatas with the latest volume in the Bach Pilgrimage. Anyone who fails to succumb to the thrilling celestial melee in No 19 is a lost cause.

-- Richard Wigmore, Gramophone [12/2006]

From Monteverdi to Brahms via French Baroque rarities: the Decca Gold (US) legacy of Nadia Boulanger, a complete musician. Newly remastered and issued complete for the first time, with fascinating liner notes by Nigel Simeone. Original Jackets, Limited Edition. Composer, teacher, organist, pianist, harpsichordist, choir trainer, conductor, musicologist: there seemed to be no end to the talents of Nadia Boulanger though she liked to insist that her gifts paled in comparison to her tragically short-lived sister, Lili. Nadia compensated with ceaseless industry. By the time of her early twenties, having studied with Faur� and undertaken the famously rigorous Paris Conservatoire formation, she was already reviving Bach cantatas in concert. In this guise she came to the attention of the American heiress and assiduous sponsor of avant-garde culture in Paris, the Princesse de Polignac, and with her support founded a vocal consort which made valuable and often-reissued HMV recordings of Monteverdi and Brahms in the 1930s. Boulanger's postwar recordings for American Decca, while also made in Paris, are much less widely known, having been issued on Brunswick LPs with limited availability outside the US and on Decca Gold in the US. Having returned to Paris after her wartime exile on the American east coast, she revived her consort for concerts at the Polignac salon, drawing together the most resilient of her older colleagues, such as the tenor Hugues Cu�nod, with younger vocal talents such as Nadine Sautereau and Irma Kolassi, who had already established an international career for themselves but were devoted to Boulanger and her tender tyranny in securing precise, selfless and stylish performances of a repertoire that was still largely the exclusive property of scholars rather than musicians. As well as returning to Monteverdi, the American Decca sessions of 1952-54 venture into what was then much less familiar territory, of chansons and madrigals by the likes of Josquin, Lassus and Le Jeune, winding up with a typically flamboyant Jan�quin showpiece which imitates an entire aviary. Then there are pioneering records of excerpts from music-dramas by Charpentier and Rameau, and finally a return to Brahms's domestic vocal music, though as with Monteverdi in 'new' and complementary repertoire, the Neue Liebeslieder and a selection from the more introspective late vocal quartets Opp. 92 and 112. On all these records Boulanger's affection for the music shines through, as well as her scrupulous attention to the detail of it's expression.

Includes work(s) by Richard Wagner. Conductor: Leif Segerstam.

Classical Music

When people speak of Georg Kreisler (1922-2011), a modern-day Schubert in creativity terms, the conversation almost inevitably turns to his superbly well-crafted, exquisite texts. The content may be as strange, nasty, gaga or melancholic as can be imagined, but one can only listen raptly to the content clothed in this elegant, artistic and frequently surprising linguistic apparel. Shortly before his passing, The Singphoniker approached Mr. Kreisler about greenlighting an project to arrange a full album of his work, to which he acceded, with the result being this new CD of Kreisler songs.