Originally issued on the 2LP set Nativity in 1976, this classic Vox recording is a fine example of Robert Shaw’s expertise as a choral conductor. The album features a selection of carols, choral works and orchestral Christmas favourites performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Produced by the legendary Elite Recordings team of Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz, and newly remastered from the original analogue tapes in high-definition.

Prior to 1991, students at Westminster Choir College organized services of lessons and carols during the season of Advent. Inspired by the famous Service of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge, these services were held in Bristol Chapel under the leadership of Sacred Music students and accompanied by student organists. Each year, for the past 30 years, we have gathered to witness this familiar tradition and to be moved by sound and word. This evening brings stability, beauty, and comfort to all who experience the music in this great space. This 30th Anniversary live recording at the Princeton University Chapel includes the Westminster Alumni Choir, Westminster Chapel Choir, Westminster Choir, Westminster Concert Bell Choir, Westminster Jubilee Singers, Westminster Symphonic Choir, Timberdale Brass, and alumnus Robert McCormick on organ.

TRACKLIST OF WORKS:

Disc 1:

• Who is This King of Glory?
• Nata Lux
• Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)
• Angel Tidings
• Toccata on Veni Emmanuel
• I Wonder as I Wander
• Missa Carolae
• Come, O Come Emmanuel
• Handel: Messiah, HMW 56
• Organ Improvisation
• In Splendoribus Sanctorum (Strathclyde Motets)
• Dame Russa Trepak
• Betelehemu

Disc 2:

• Come, All Ye Faithful
• In the Bleak Midwinter
• On This Day Earth Shall Rise
• Dona Nobis Pacem
• Hark the Herald Angels Sing
• Festival First Nowell
• Silent Night
• Ringing in the Season
• Joy to the World
• L’année d’or
• The Lord Bless You and Keep You
• Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella

As the progenitor of a style whose influence more or less came to define the instrumental music of the High Baroque, Arcangelo Corelli (1653 - 1713) occupies a position in music history as unenviable as it is to his great credit. Just what made Corelli’s style seem strikingly novel to his contemporaries is a tricky question. To be sure, his standardization and popularization of certain formal tropes – most notably the succession of movement types in Sonate da Camera and Sonate da Chiesa – was a significant part of what his followers considered the ‘Corellian’ manner.

But Corelli’s actual compositional style, his way of organizing musical thoughts into phrases and motives, is fundamentally derived from the expressive capabilities of his chosen instrument, the violin. Certain melodic patterns used to modulate and to effect sequences (e.g., chains of sevenths and fifths) basically derive from specificities of violin technique that amplify an instrument with origins primarily in dance music into one that in Corelli’s hands, could imitate the rise and fall of the sung and spoken human voice. This tension between idiomatically instrumental techniques and the evocation of the voice is the defining characteristic of Corelli’s style throughout all his surviving works and would establish the “Roman School” as the supreme measure of musical taste for generations.

For this exploration of the 18th century’s Corelli Craze, the dynamic star trio of Mahan Esfahani, Hille Perl and Michala Petri unite to trace the Roman’s influence, (sometimes in name only...) on the musical legacies of Bach, Händel and Telemann, and of course two works from the pen of the celebrated Italian Master, himself. Gramophone about the Petri/Perl/Esfahani Trio’s Bach recording: “While the tonal and expressive range of the recorder, viol and harpsichord may appear constrained in comparison to, say, flute, cello and piano, in the hands of foremost players such as these, even a relatively lightweight work such as the C major Sonata, BWV1033, comes over as the ideal demonstration of a particular facet of the composer’s style and the performers’ abilities.”

By popular demand, this Berlin Classics recording will be reissued on Vinyl. Handel's famous Suite"Watermusic" is one of the most well know and loved pieces of classical music from the baroque period. This historically informed interpretation stands out through ist clear articulation and historically accurate interpretation. This recording is a must-have for every classical music record collection.

Chopin is said to have played in time (the metronome was always on the instrument), his left hand relentlessly keeping the tempo. Students also reported that he never played a piece in the same way, and that each performance produced a different result. And yet the composer's rubato playing was by no means as free as it is today. There are no reports of Chopin's playing of Bach in particular, but his admiration for the composer is certain. We therefore put the legend that he himself—according to his own statement—played only Bach for fourteen days before a concert into perspective and simply imagine that he worked intensively on "Bach" before his already rare performances. We can assume that the preludes and fugues of the "Well-Tempered Clavier," some of which are also heard in this project, were the focus of his interest.

A closer look at Chopin’s works, especially those of a smaller dimension, repeatedly catches the eye of modules that we think we already know from Bach. Individual bars of the Préludes op. 28 (1836-1839) and Études (op. 10 no. 4) (1833/1837) could be retransformed into a nucleus in Bach’s character with just a few “hand movements.” Chopin’s veneration of Bach preserved these highly condensed musical tools of the Baroque composer well into the Romantic century. He still used them in his late works, such as his last Nocturne in E major, which in a sense takes stock of “Bach.”

This recording, which feels entirely experimental, aims to create a unique musical experience through the direct connection of tonal, for example key, variations. The sound of some structurally related works clearly shows how much Chopin was influenced by Bach's work, whose formal stability with its geometric structures often prevented him from sowing too much "tinsel, trinkets, and pearls," something Robert Schumann once had the courage to accuse his rival of. The aim of this project tempted us to play "Chopin like Bach" here and there and to achieve the greatest possible transparency with extremely economical use of the pedal. Above all, to breathe Chopin's breath into Bach's melodic beauties with a "romantic" touch. The approximately 40-year-old Steinway B grand piano was chosen because of its slim bass section.

Discover songs to connect, heal, and inspire on the U.S. Navy Band Sea Canter Chorus’ recording “Safe Harbor”. These musicians have played a vital role in comforting America in times of mourning, and this recording follows in those footsteps

"Johann Sebastian Bach used the recorder in two Brandenburg concertos and some twenty cantatas and oratorios, but alas, he left us no sonata with harpsichord," say Julien Martin and Olivier Fortin. Arranging chamber music for a variety of instrumental ensembles was a widespread practice in the eighteenth century. Bach himself seems to have created a number of works that did not necessarily require the use of a specific instrument. Here Julien Martin and Olivier Fortin, musical partners for many years, present the Sonata in F major, originally written for transverse flute and continuo, transcriptions of the Trio Sonata for organ No. 3 in E minor, the Partita for violin No. 2 in G minor, and the Chorale 'Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland', whose extensive ornamental flourishes elongate and transform the chorale melody to the point of rendering it unrecognisable.

Voices of Thunder features a range of spectacular choral pieces that showcase Magdalen College Chapel’s new Eule organ. Following on from Peace I Leave with You, this new album combines the sublime voices of The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, with the new and exciting sonorities of the Eule organ. The recording includes music from Joseph Haydn to Judith Weir, as well as Arvo Pärt’s atmospheric Beatitudes, Libby Larsen’s playful I Will Sing and Raise a Psalm, and Hubert Parry’s thunderous Blest Pair of Sirens. The Eule organ was built by Herman Eule Orgelbau of Bautzen in Germany and is the first Eule organ of its kind to have been built in the UK for almost 100 years.

REVIEW:

The installation of a new pipe organ, like any long-awaited new arrival, is always best marked with some kind of celebratory fanfare such as this splendid, generously filled disc. This disc is a triumph for the Magdalen musicians and an equally enjoyable experience from both choral and organ points of view.

— Gramophone

The harpsichord concertos of J.S. Bach form the origins of the keyboard concerto genre that was to continue to flourish through the music of his sons, C.P.E. Bach and J.C. Bach, and onwards. Here, celebrated keyboardist Steven Devine is joined by members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in this recording that features the Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052, Concerto in A major BWV 1055, and the Concerto in D major BWV1054, together with a new reconstruction by Steven Devine of the Concerto in D minor BWV 1059.