Expectations for Dunedin Consort’s recording of Acis & Galatea were high; its release in 2008 followed on from its hugely successful recording of Handel’s Messiah. The combination of Messiah’s award-winning cast and director John Butt’s insights into authentic performance practice ensured it was met with numerous recommendations and outstanding reviews. Acis & Galatea is a beautiful pastoral entertainment; Handel’s first dramatic work in English is a simple yet highly emotional story that encompasses the extremes of love and tragedy. There are notable differences in the original performing version from 1718, including changes in instrumentation and vocal scoring (there is no alto line) made by Handel to suit the forces at Cannons. Butt chose this version specifically because of the small forces involved, since this was one of the aspects that made Messiah so distinctive; although there have been ‘first versions’ of Acis recorded before, Butt felt that there were certain aspects of the original version that had not yet been sufficiently realized.

John Butt and the Dunedin Consort present the 1610 Vespers in its customary order with no chant additions, accepting the view that this ‘work’ is a collection of sacred pieces deliberately ordered in the general shape of an ‘imaginary’ Vespers service. In other words, the Vespers as most people know it.

The result is a ‘chamber’ version in which clarity of detail and the beauty of individual voices (recorded fairly closely and in many places clearly recognisable) provide an alternative to the grand gestures and bold colours of other more monumental performances. It also allows for plenty of attention to text, not just in the solo motets but in the larger psalm-settings as well.

The sound is first-rate as ever from Linn, with a sampled Italian chest organ discreetly adding warmth and incisiveness. With so many Vespers recordings out there, this one joins the ranks of those with both a character of its own and something to say.

– Gramophone

Recorded during this year’s Misteria Paschalia Festival in Poland, Dunedin Consort’s performance of Handel’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day sees them joined for the first time by tenor Ian Bostridge and soprano Carolyn Sampson. Bostridge demonstrates the technical mastery and vocal precision that has seen him win all the major international record prizes in his twenty-five year career. Highly sought-after for her refined Baroque sensibilities and pure intonation, Sampson’s lyric soprano is ideally suited to Handel. Led by John Butt, with singers from the Polish Radio Choir, this rich and colorful tribute to music’s patron saint is the latest in their much-lauded Handel discography, which includes Messiah, Acis & Galatea and Esther, each recording having won widespread acclaim. The recording is completed by Handel’s Concerto Grosso in A minor Op. 6 No. 4, in which Dunedin Consort’s exceptional instrumentalists take center stage.

In this pioneering recording Dunedin Consort presents a brand new performing version of one of Handel’s greatest dramatic works, Samson. For the first time listeners can enjoy an authentic Handelian chorus, comprising both solo sopranos and boy trebles – a sonority largely unheard in the modern age. The singers available to Handel for the work’s first set ofa performances in 1743 varied considerably, leading many researchers to speculate upon the composer’s own preferences. But new thinking by director John Butt has led to the evolution of this recording and to what he considers to be the definitive performance in line with Handel’s intentions. This powerful oratorio – an opera in all but name – features soloists Sophie Bevan, Matthew Brook, Mary Bevan, Hugo Hymas and Jess Dandy, with Joshua Ellicott in the title role. Matching the revelatory historical practice begun in its award-winning recording of Messiah (Dublin Version, 1742), the soloists lead their sections to unite the solo and choral forces, creating a highly effective and cohesive sound. With rich orchestration and highlights such as ‘Let the bright seraphim’ and ‘Total eclipse’, Samson is Dunedin Consort’s most ambitious undertaking to date.

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REVIEW:

This new Samson now becomes the top recommendation: for its uniformly excellent soloists, its excitingly ‘present’ choral singing and, above all, its more urgent sense of theatre. Sophie and Mary Bevan, both natural Handelian stylists, are well-nigh ideal. Jess Dandy, a true contralto, is the oratorio’s voice of balm, singing the sublime prayer ‘Return, O God of hosts’ with warm, even tone and broad phrasing.

– Gramophone

This is the premiere recording of J.S. Bach’s John Passion, heard for the first time within its original liturgical context. Director John Butt succeeds in giving listeners a refreshing outlook on one of the best-known pieces of the choral repertoire. The recording also features works by Jacob Händl Gallus, J. Crüger and J.H. Schein from an original Leipzig hymn book performed by a congregational choir and the University of Glasgow Chapel Choir. John Butt takes centre stage to perform organ chorale preludes by Bach and Schütz on the Collins organ at Edinburgh’s Greyfriar’s Kirk. The impressive cast includes Nicholas Mulroy (Evangelista), Matthew Brook (Jesus), Robert Davies, Joanne Lunn and Clare Wilkinson. The recording was named a Gramophone Award Finalist, ‘Recording of the Month’ by three separate publications and topped the UK Specialist Chart upon its release in 2013. Dunedin Consort’s recreation of this recording at the 2017 BBC Proms was a highlight of the summer, earning critical acclaim for the ‘revelatory’ and ‘vital’ performance.

John Butt directs Dunedin Consort in this collection of three of Bach’s finest cantatas. Together, they explore the timely themes of consolation and salvation. Having previously received exceptional critical acclaim for recordings of Bach’s Mass in B minor (which was named a Benchmark Recording by BBC Music Magazine) and St. John Passion (nominated for both a 2014 ICMA and a 2013 Gramophone Award), Dunedin Consort now cements its impressive Bachian credentials with these three cantatas.

Bass Matthew Brook takes centre stage in the melancholic yet optimistic Ich habe genug, with soprano Joanne Lunn joining him to portray the searching dialogue of Jesus and the Soul in the profoundly beautiful Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen. Known as ‘Actus Tragicus’, the early cantata Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit is an altogether grander affair. Likely intended for a funeral, it stands out in Bach’s output both for its sublime choruses and its unusual instrumentation – notably the two oscillating recorders in the introduction, which set the tone for one of Bach’s most heartfelt and quietly uplifting cantatas.

Dunedin Consort made its Linn debut with this 2001 recording of a cappella vocal music by America's two most famous 20th c. composers: Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber. + In their settings for unaccompanied chorus, each had an instinctive feel for the human voice, a natural gift for word-setting, and a pure style of writing that rarely, if ever, obscured its literary dimension. + Winners of two Gramophone Awards, the Dunedin Consort has established a reputation as one of the finest period performance choirs around. + “…a stunning performance, and a brilliant recording.’ (Hi-Fi Choice)

Following a highly anticipated televised performance at the 2023 BBC Proms, Dunedin Consort and its director John Butt now release Mozart’s ‘Great’ Mass in C minor and Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach’s Heilig ist Gott on Linn. Devised to celebrate his marriage to Constanze, but left unfinished at the composer’s death, Mozart’s Mass can clearly be traced back to the choral writing of Johann Sebastian Bach and his son, Carl Phillip Emmanuel. This musical genealogy is displayed here in a lavish double-chorus, double-orchestra feast where both works echo each other. No stranger to Mozart – the ensemble’s recording of the Requiem was a Gramophone Award Winner and Grammy-nominated – Dunedin Consort puts its stamp on these most spectacular contributions to church music.

The magnificent Orchestral Suites, known as Ouvertüren in German, form the final instalment in Dunedin Consort’s long-running Bach Masterworks series for Linn, a series lauded as ‘nothing short of sensational’ by Gramophone. The intricate counterpoint and extraordinary technical demands present an opportunity, throughout these four sets of stately French-style overtures and dances, to demonstrate the virtuosic skill present in an ensemble of Dunedin’s caliber. The first two suites are scored for modest forces, yet the lightness and simplicity of touch conceals a complex musical language built on intimately interweaving parts. The third and fourth suites calls for trumpets, timpani, oboes, and a full complement of strings, thus making for a grand finale to Dunedin’s unrivalled Bach series. An insight into the ambition of this recording is offered in the title of the fourth suite’s final movement: for what better way to end the series than to fill listeners with immense ‘réjouissance’!

Handel's arrival in Rome seems to have had a miraculous influence on his development as a composer. Something about the eternal city ignited the most productive period of his entire career: there Handel worked with some of the greatest musicians of the age and enjoyed the favours of major patrons of the arts. There he also witnessed the clerical aristocracy's sensual enjoyment of those very luxuries, excesses, and trappings of beauty that they professed to deny in their sermons. In Handel in Rome, Dunedin Consort and it's director John Butt set out to convey Handel's response to this stimulating and somewhat paradoxical environment with three Italian cantatas. Winner of the Rising Talent award at the 2022 International Opera Awards, Nardus Williams is the star soprano.