This selection was previously available as Conifer 212.

Includes song(s) by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Soloists: Sergei Leiferkus, Nina Rautio, Semeon Skigin.

This set is offered at a special price: 2 discs for the price of 1.

The English television program TWO THOUSAND YEARS charts relative chronologies in world history, religion, art and science as seen from the perspective of the end of the second millenium, and this two disc anthology taken from the soundtrack follows that progress in music, specifically sacred choral music ranging from the 6th century chant of the Russian Saint Romanus to the late 20th century minimalism of Henryk Gorecki.
The selection is admirably chosen and well distributed through the centuries, especially generous in the amount of earlier music included. There are a few surprises, such as the deeply affecting "Woe is me" of English renaissance composer Thomas Tomkins or the uplifting "Dawn" of current-day New Yorker Meredith Monk, as well as the moving Agnus Dei of Samuel Barber, which is a lesser-known vocal arrangement of his famous Adagio for Strings.
The performances, featuring the Choir of Trinity College, the King's Singers and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Colin Davis, are all first rate and well-recorded.

This is singing of Russian song at its finest, intense yet personal, eloquent but never straying into the operatic.

Only a third of the songs on this fourth volume of Conifer's complete Tchaikovsky (previous issues were reviewed in 8/96 and 1/97) are sung by Leiferkus, but they include some of the finest, and the Finest performances. There is a superb irony in his singing of As they reiterated, "Fool!", as he curls his voice around the phrases and hardens his tone into a snarl for the reproach to the drunkard; yet the cavernous pain in one of Tchaikovsky's strangest songs, In dark Hell, matches without any emotional distancing the poem's grim mood. With Exploit he controls the growth of tone towards the climax superbly, then dropping to a hushed, exhausted quality for the quiet final verse.

This is singing of Russian song at its finest, intense yet personal, eloquent but never straying into the operatic. Nina Rautio is not so sure-footed. At her best, she can respond with grace and a fresh sense of colour, as with the pretty Pimpinella. In Sleep she pays close attention to the words, which hold the key (as so often with Tchaikovsky) to phrasing that can be elusive. But when less at ease with a song, she can take refuge in operatic declamation of a kind that loses the idiom, as with Softly the spirit, or snatch at the phrasing, as with Thy radi ant image. The setting of Mignon's Kennst du das Land (in Tyutchev's translation) is more successfully handled, not least because of the beautiful playing ofSemion Skigin. He has the idiom of these songs in his veins, and the skill to match his singers and respond to the best in them. There is no finer Russian song pianist performing today.

-- Gramophone [7/1998]

Includes song(s) by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Soloists: Sergei Leiferkus, Semeon Skigin.

An assured and impressive performance, with expressive dynamic shadings, pure intonation, and intelligent phrasing.

...John Rutter and Richard Marlow with their Cambridge choirs here cover all Poulenc's sacred choral music except the Stabat mater... Both sets of performances are very good, with fine balance, expressive dynamic shadings, pure intonation, intelligent phrasing and excellent enunciation—so good that it seems a pity their programmes should overlap for the Penitential and Christmas motets and the three others. The main difference between them is that the acoustics of Trinity College chapel are more resonant than that of University College School hall, used by Rutter (though this has certainly no lack of warmth): as a result, the College choir, already splendidly firm of voice, produces a notably rich sonority... The Regent Chamber Choir...snatches off ends of phrases too abruptly. This habit is very marked in Poulenc's angular and Stravinskyan Mass, in which weight and fullness of tone are lacking in the men (e.g. at the start of the "Gloria"), as becomes very obvious when compared with Marlow's assured and impressive performance (with a very sweet-toned soprano in the "Agnus Dei").

-- Gramophone [10/1988, comparing this CD with Collegium 506 and Regent/Target 101]

Although it is for his keyboard music that Sweelinck is remembered today, it's a curious fact (pointed out by Richard Marlow in his insert-note to this release) that it was his vocal music—and virtually all of it at that—that made it into print during his lifetime. One of his most notable achievements was to set all of the Psalms in French (the favoured language of the amateur circles for which this music was probably intended), an exercise that occupied his entire creative life and found its monument in four volumes of superb psalm-settings, published between 1604 and 1621. This new recording offers 15 pieces from the third book, published in 1614, and gives notice of the variety and ingenuity to be found in Sweclinck's vocal output, encompassing as it does robust antiphony in Venetian style, elegantly fluid counterpoint, and imaginative manipulation of his original psalm melodies in a manner not a million miles removed from that of a Bach organ chorale. The most striking characteristic on first hearing, however, must be Sweelinck's charming touches of word-painting, evident above all in the first and last pieces on the disc: Psalm 150, with its depiction of the laudatory tabour ("bou-bou-bou-bou-bour"!); and Psalm 148, whose sinister evocation of the. whales of the deep is followed immediately by a vivid representation of fire, hail, snow and ice.


The mixed voices of the Trinity College Choir are on good form here. Though their sound is not quite as sharply focused—and hence not as contrapuntally lucid—as that of some other ensembles around at the moment, they produce a nicely blended sound that is never less than easy on the ear. But it is Richard Marlow's astute and imaginative direction that really makes this a recording worth hearing; his sensitivity and responsiveness to the constant changes of choral texture are tireless, while a willowy, declamatory springiness to the vocal delivery and an ability to give the music a firm rhythmic impetus help him to delineate both the form and sense of each piece. This disc multiplies the number of Sweelinck's vocal works currently in the catalogue by 16—and it also provides 77 minutes of the most intelligent and lively choral music-making.

-- Gramophone [8/1992]

Composed near the end of Brahms's life, these two Sonatas were originally written for clarinet and received their first performance on January 7th, 1895 with Richard Mühlfeld (whose artistry had inspired the composer) and Brahms himself at the piano. However, Brahms always saw them as also playable on the viola, and that version goes further than merely transposing where necessary: for example, some figuration is changed and there is double-stopping, and in a few places the instrument plays where the clarinet is silent.

Both versions are well represented in the current catalogue, though the clarinet one is more numerous than that with viola. Nevertheless, this new disc is welcome. Rivka Golani brings a highly developed tonal flexibility to the music and shows a firm understanding of the style. So, for that matter, does her pianist Konstantin Bogino. Thus Brahms's darkish but often sadly beautiful vision is well realized, and the recording makes a good job of the difficult balancing act for these two instruments; even if the piano's bass has a thickish sound, that is not inappropriate. I question, however, whether the initial Allegro appassionato of the F minor Sonata should not move along just a little more briskly; on the evidence of this playing, Golani is essentially a serious artist who could also have brought more of a smile to the Allegretto grazioso third movement. Still, all is enjoyable and the finale has a splendid positive vigour.

I find Golani too slow in the Allegro amabile first movement of the E flat major Sonata—it is as if she has concentrated on the latter word in Brahms's marking and forgotten the former—and the Allegro appassionato that follows is also more deliberate than usual. But her playing has so much tonal beauty that this leisureliness may perhaps be excused, particularly as this work has no slow movement as such. Again, the finale has Schivung.

Joachim's work dates from 1860 and is here receiving its first recording. It's unremarkable as music (save that the lengthy theme is played just by the piano), and has a style somewhere between Schumann and Elgar plus a gipsy element (thus not unlike Brahms), but this great violinist wrote beautifully for the viola and Golani's playing of the ten longish variations is refined and expressive.

-- Gramophone [9/1992]

A stunning aural experience - the extraordinary virtuosity and diversity of color achieved by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band astonishes.

The extraordinary virtuosity and diversity of colour achieved by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band can still astonish in spite of their well-known reputation. However, the brass-band world has always suffered from having a limited number of conductors with the musicianship and interpretative flair to equal that displayed in the concert-hall. Such a one is Elgar Howarth and Sir Malcolm Arnold has rightly praised his unerringly paced, carefully prepared yet highly spontaneous performances.

The composer was present throughout these recordings and himself conducted the final item, the Padstow Lifeboat march with its insistent offkey foghorn (based on the pitch of the real one at Trevose in Cornwall). The sheer ebullience of the playing is immediately breathtaking in the first of the Scottish Dances, and in the second the 'drunken' solo bass trombone is in the best tradition of the British brass experience. When the Grimethorpe players come to the glorious third Scottish Dance (one of the most magical tunes Arnold ever penned) the subtlety of colour is astonishing. The effect is quite lovely and the cornet choir are melting, with a subtly rich sonority beneath. One really does not miss the strings. A soloist then takes over against a gentle glockenspiel, the close frisson-creating. The gusto of the last dance is irresistible.

The eight English Dances are played with equal sophistication and brilliance, and are very enjoyable. Nevertheless, here I miss the orchestral colours more (these two suites are, in my opinion, the finest orchestral music Arnold ever wrote). Even so, the Meslo (Op. 27 No. 3) is quite haunting and the players get round the colour problem in the first dance in Op. 33 by whistling the air themselves! The heavy brass in the closing Gubiloso is a joy. The more melancholy atmosphere of the Cornish Dances is touchingly caught; the weird ghostly effects of the second and the hymn-like solemnity of the third (with their imagery of "deserted engine-house of the tin and copper mines", and echoes of Sankey and Mood hymns) are unforgettable. The two Little Suites (like the Padstow March) are written for brass band and demonstrate how well the composer—once a trumpeter himself in the LPO—understands the medium. The first has a charming Siciliano second movement, the second a Galop finale worthy of Offenbach in its effervescence, yet still very much of the bandstand. The finest of the original band works is the Fantasy, one of those rare test pieces which is more than just test for a soloist's nerve, combined sectional bravura and inter-instrumental tuning and sonorities. It is all those things, yet also a highly imaginative series of joined vignettes.

The performances are superlative and the recording made—appropriately—in Dewsbury (Yorkshire) Town Hall is tangible and natural, and beautifully balanced, making the most of the hall's ambience without any loss of detail. A stunning aural experience.

-- Gramophone [12/1993]

Although Andrzej Panufnik's three string quartets are relatively late works, the second of them—subtitled Messages—is actually a delayed musical reaction to a childhood experience. Even at the age of seven, Panufnik was fascinated by the musical potential of non-musical sounds; he would press his ear against a telegraph pole and listen "to sounds produced by the poles vibrating in the wind" (Panufnik's own description)--a radical metaphor, surely, for the principles underlying the construction of stringed instruments. No wonder he allotted his "fantasy-poem" to a quartet, the ideal medium for expressing high-reaching sonorities and relentless tonal squabbling. While the Second Quartet (1980) recalls the outdoor nocturnals of Bartok and Szymanowski, the First—a product of 1976—opens with urgent, strongly differentiated chatter. But at 312" (track 1), Panufnik switches to luminous, long-breathed lines; subdued, shifting and rising (630") to an ethereal height. Like the symphonies, the quartets develop from tiny thematic germs; yet listeners habitually fazed by structural technicalities will find atmosphere to spare, even in the high-energy Postlude.

The Third Quartet was commissioned by the 1991 London International String Quartet Competition and was designed as the test piece. Busy in the extreme, it is cast as five separate 'miniature studies' (and is tracked as such on the CD, although neither booklet nor jewel case admits the fact); it also serves as a concentrated résumé of Panufnik's quartet style. Which leaves the two works for string sextet. The Song to the Virgin Mary was transcribed from an a cappella choral piece of the same name and conjures up something of Dvoák's steadfast, simple piety. The Song opens with a chant in harmonics then (to quote Bernard Jacobson, the author of Conifer's excellent booklet-notes), "weaves through all six voices and passes through all 23 keys", always respectful of its ancient models. "Trains of Thought" was inspired by the hypnotic rhythm of wheels on track and the thoughts suggested by them; it is based on a three-note cell, "constantly rotated and frequently transposed and reflected". But the effect is more like a dream one might have of the train floating off the tracks and careering up into the firmament: the rhythm remains gently insistent, the harmonic language subtle and suggestive. A strong idea, it's also the one work on the disc that I thought might have benefited from a little pruning: eight or nine minutes would surely have been more effective than nearly 14. The Chilingirian Quartet perform well, the sound production is excellent and the notes are both appetizing and informative. A most engaging release and a positive signal, one hopes, that further innovative chamber programmes will be forthcoming from the same source.

-- Robert Cowan, Gramophone [12/1993]

The two historically outstanding recordings of Rossini's Petite messe solennelle, Sawallisch's on Eurodisc/BMG and Cleobury's on EMI, both take up two CDs. Single-CD versions tend to be either rushed, like Corboz's on Erato/WEA, or cut, which is the case with Mason's set with Combattimento on Meridian, a version that also suffers from rather a lot of redundant and stylistically inadmissible ornamentation. On the new Conifer recording, the text is complete, and though some of Simon Halsey's tempos are decidedly spirited, the virtuosity and refinement of the

CBSO Chorus's singing are never in doubt. This seems to be rather more than a 12-voice version. The choral image is full-bodied and also discreetly distant. But in the Great Hall of the University of Birmingham this doesn't compromise clarity; it merely adds bloom to the sound. In the ebullient "Cum Sancto Spiritu", Halsey is as quick as Scimone on Philips, but where Scimone's Ambrosian Opera Chorus, closely recorded, seems rather hectoring, with choppy rhythms, the CBSO Chorus has a King's-like fluency and grace, and great clarity. I was a little surprised to hear the redoubtable John Tomlinson as the bass soloist. He sings imposingly, and has the makings of a full Rossini trill, but his presence in the ensembles can seem a shade burdensome in so courtly a musical context. On paper, Gandolfi's solo team on Decca is the most internationally expert—Freni, Terrani, Pavarotti and Ruggero Raimondi, no less—but in practice they are entirely the wrong kind of singers for this music. By contrast, Sawallisch's team for his live 1972 Baumburg Monastery performance is exemplary; Kari LOvaas and Brigitte Fassbaender sing with great intensity and Peter Schreier and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau recognize the work's chamber-music scale as well as its surprising emotional range. Conifer's Anne-Marie Owens is very fine in the "Agnus Dei", and, as always in this kind of music, Helen Field's contribution is a delight throughout, though LOvaas's singing of the "Crucifixus" remains unsurpassed in its grieving intensity, particularly in Rossini's symbolically excruciating series of rising minor thirds at the heart of the meditation.

The other distinguishing feature of the new Conifer version is the playing of the pianists, David Nettle and Richard Markham. They have the advantage of a new edition, due from Oxford University Press in 1991, in which the editor, Nancy Fleming, has gone back to the autograph manuscript and thus bypassed some of the compromises we are used to from performing editions in which the two piano parts are derived from the orchestral version of 1869. (Conifer dub their release: "Original Version, First Recording".) It is easy to exaggerate the difference between what we have here and what we are used to on previous recordings. More important is the pianists' stylish and pertinent realization of Rossini's distinctively fine-grained piano manner. The "Preludio religioso" is touched off at a properly flowing Andantino mosso. The instruments themselves, a pair of Steinways, have been well chosen whilst Peter King is playing a two-manual Mustel harmonium.

Clearly, if you don't want the expense of a twoCD set—Sawallisch's, or Cleobury's with the King's College Choir, the Labeque sisters, and soloists led by Lucia Popp—this new version would be the one to go for. It is by no means flawless in the solo vocal department, but in all other respects it is a most distinguished and agreeable account of this intensely absorbing work.

-- Gramophone [10/1990]

SCH¸TZ: PSALMS OF DAVID MARLO

"I have little but praise for the accomplished singing on this disc. . . . [C]arefully graduated dynamics, close attention to the meaning and spirit of the text—listen to the jubilant declamatory opening of Singet dem Herrn—and disciplined singing result in readings which sparkle with life. . . . These are serene but radiant performances of the motets which deserve an elevated place among their competitors. . . . Recommended." -- Nicholas Anderson, Gramophone

WEELKES, TOMKINS: WHEN DAVID H