This landmark recording is the first album devoted entirely to the music of Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903-1998). A composer, conductor, pianist and singer of remarkable versatility, she long remained in the shadow of her father, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Here, at last, her artistry takes centre stage. Featuring world-premiere recordings of some of her most significant orchestral works, the album reveals a distinctive musical voice - eloquent, assured, and deeply personal. Together, these performances stand as a powerful testament to her creativity and resilience, illuminating the experiences of a woman of colour in twentieth-century Britain.

Ceruleo celebrate the music of Barbara Strozzi, one of the greatest composers of the seventeenth century, and the most published composer of secular song of her time. Her distinctive style is characterised by virtuosic vocal lines, sophisticated interplay between voices and accompaniment, and a dramatic approach to text setting that went above and beyond that of her influences Claudio Monteverdi and Francesco Cavalli. This is music of passion and desire; for love - both in general and in the specific form of another person - but also a longing for an answer to life's questions or for relief from life's burdens. With two sopranos, viola da gamba, harpsichord and lute, Ceruleo bring to life the music of this extraordinary composer, combining a selection of her finest works with instrumental pieces by her contemporaries.

Rising-star period keyboardist Julian Perkins makes his solo Resonus Classics debut with a new recording of the French Suites by J.S. Bach. Seldom recorded on the clavichord, thought to be Bach's keyboard instrument of choice, the Suites' versatile, expressive, and lyrical qualities are expertly revealed by Perkins on this, the gentlest and most intimate of all keyboard instruments. Performing on two instruments by the maker Peter Bavington, the program is completed with two further suites: one earlier partita by Johann Jakob Froberger, and one more contemporary suite by Georg Philipp Telemann, previously attributed to Bach himself.

Following on from their debut release on Resonus – 'Music for Troubled Times' – The Ebor Singers, with director Paul Gameson, returns to the label with a companion album of music for Christmas from the time of the English Civil War. With 'A Cavalier Christmas', the choir are joined by the Chelys Consort of Viols in exploring this fascinating, yet turbulent, period in music as Charles I sought to continue to observe the festive season in style, contrary to attempts by England’s Puritan-influenced parliament to ban such celebrations. Acclaimed for performances and recordings that sparkle with fresh insight and vibrant musicality, The Ebor Singers has earned a reputation as one of the most exciting vocal ensembles in the north of England. Based in the beautiful medieaval city of York, the choir performs regularly in the city’s stunning buildings, including York Minster.

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REVIEWS:

What Christmas music was sung during the English Civil War period? The York-based Ebor Singers answer that question in this fine anthology of works by Gibbons, Byrd, Dering, Jenkins and others.

– BBC Music Magazine

Paul Gameson coaxes fine singing and some admirable solo contributions from his Ebor ensemble, with the Chely’s Consort of Viols providing discrete accompaniment throughout.

– Classical Ear

In succession to the Tudors, the flourishing court culture of the Stuart royal dynasty fostered one of the greatest periods in the history of British music. Director and organist Andrew Arthur unites his forces in this compelling program of works by three composers who flourished in the Jacobean period – Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Tomkins – around the theme of the Word of God. The choral items on this album exemplify a rhetorically-aware sense of what it means to sound the Word enriched with music in order to teach, move and delight.

The name Elisabeth Lutyens is synonymous with music that is overtly serial, uncompromisingly modernist, and of daring and fearless individuality. Yet there is much to explore behind the naturally combative and provocative façade of this extraordinary composer, whose music is at various times sensual, thoughtful and delicate, as well as dark, turbulent and even violent. With a program of works all composed in the last decade of her life, and containing world premiere recordings, the first volume of pianist Martin Jones’s survey of Lutyens’s piano works includes five works at times startling in their stark beauty, and bursting with both vivid imagery and lyrical fluidity.

REVIEW:

Was there ever as unrepentant a lifelong modernist - or one so dedicated to the sensuous, poetic, emotive potential of atonal music - as Elisabeth Lutyens, the composer who coined the term "cowpat school", inveighed against "folky-wolky modal melodies" and chided her students for "boring tonal references" if she unearthed an accidental major or minor triad in their compositions? Boulez, maybe, but few others.

The works here on Vol. 1 are all relatively late, the earliest being Plenum I (signifying a silent space filled up with sound, emptied out, and refilled) of 1972. Notated without barlines and with some economically used extended techniques, the piece is representative of Lutyens greater freedom of notation in later years, though strictly organized with note-rows and in her favourite palindromic form. Notated silence is increasingly important in later works, especially the spare, though amply expressive, La Natura dell’Acqua, her last work for piano. Detached phrases and gestures - many delicate and bejewelled, some aggressive and strident - combine in an abstract but expressive way that the composer likened to the late, non-figurative paintings of Turner. An even better example of this is the marvelously descriptive The Great Seas, an 18-minute tone poem hailed by Michael Finnissy (who premiered it) for its "sensuality … delicacy and fluidity" but also "violence, darkness and pain", which predominantly gives the impression of vast, calm expanses illuminated by constantly changing lighting conditions, but intermittently and graphically hints at the extreme violence of deep currents and suddenly flaring storms. The Preludes are a perfect summation of Lutyens' piano writing; bearing evocative titles (three of them from Keats), they are highly expressive and descriptive, the shade of Debussy detectable in the background. Although the composer preferred French clarity, lucidity, and elegance to what she saw as heavyweight German Expressionism, two of these pieces - "Strange Thunders …" and "The Shifting of Mighty Winds …" are notable for their muscular, aggressive energy. The earlier Impromptus are the most unabashedly, dissonantly atonal works here; succinct and compressed, they sound like passionate, extrovert derivatives of Webernian economy.

In their second album for Resonus, the Gould Piano Trio returns with a recording of Schubert’s Piano Trios. Apart from a very early single movement written when he fifteen years of age, Schubert came to the piano trio late in his short career and left only two full-length works in the form, written in 1827–8. By the time Schubert came to write his piano trios, the form had taken on a new stature thanks to work from composers such as Beethoven. Here, Schubert’s Trios in B-flat major and the ‘Notturno’ in E-flat major are joined by the delightful Valses nobles D969, composed for solo piano and heard here in a world premiere recording in this arrangement for trio by Julius Zellner.

Making their Resonus Classics debut is period wind ensemble Syrinx with a programme of works by Georg Philipp Telemann. Revealing a fascinating blend of styles, Telemann’s wind music is an eclectic mix of perfectly balanced Baroque dances, full-blown orchestral overtures and character pieces exemplified by the rustic miniature of Les Paysans and the gentle slumber of muted double-reeds in Le Someil.

The two resident choirs of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and their director Edward Wickham, join together to record this stunning and evocative selection of contemporary Christmas carols. The college can boast having the first and only college-based Oxbridge girls' choir, and its own beautiful chapel in the very heart of Cambridge, provided the venue for this debut recording of the recently founded St Catharine's Girls' Choir. Joined by the student choir, the album features premieres from such composers as Richard Rodney Bennett, Roxanna Panufnik, Cecilia McDowall and John Tavener. It also includes works specially written for the Girls' Choir by Stevie Wishart and Christopher Fox.

Originally intended as an opera for television, Malcolm Arnold’s collaboration with film-maker and librettist Joe Mendoza, The Dancing Master, Op. 34, was considered too racy for viewers in the 1950s and subsequently rejected for broadcast and largely forgotten. Conductor John Andrews, with the BBC Concert Orchestra and a stellar cast, breathes new life into this operatic gem, here receiving its first recording. With its cast of larger-than life Restoration caricatures – the trapped heiress, the scheming maid, the over-protective guardian, and the handsome rake – the opera showcases Arnold’s taste for exuberant satire and tender Romanticism in equal measure.

The two choirs of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge return to Resonus Classics to collaborate once more on a new recording of contemporary works for Advent and Christmas. Featuring many world premiere recordings, the programme includes works written specially for the two college choirs including Diana Burrell’s exuberant carol, Green groweth the holly; Christopher Fox’s major new setting of the O Anitphons, interspersed with the original plainchant, and Jeremy Thurlow’s Magnificat for upper voices, organ and tape, that blazes with the intensity of a new vision of the world.

Making their recording debut on Resonus Classics is Sonoro, one of the UK's newest and most impressive chamber choirs, founded in 2016 by Neil Ferris and Michael Higgins. Noted for their warmth of tone, rich blend of colours and vibrancy in performance, for their first recording Sonoro presents sacred music by Frank Martin and James MacMillan, with a programme featuring Martin's iconic Mass for Double Choir and a selection of works from MacMillan's considerable contribution to the choral repertoire, including his powerful setting of the Miserere. Sonoro's distinctive sound has propelled the ensemble to secure engagements from some of the UK's most prestigious venues and promoters, including the London Chamber Music Series at King's Place, and the Wimbledon International Music Festival. Sonoro has also performed live on BBC Radio 3 'In Tune' and been featured on London Live television. The choir's unmistakably rich and full sound has been realized by allowing each singer to be free to use all of their voice, matched with careful blending, creating warmth and resonance.

The Choir of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge with its director, Edward Wickham, present an exciting recording of extended and little-known Psalm settings by the Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer Claude Le Jeune. Selected from Le Jeune’s monumental 'Dodecacorde' collection of Psalms, and giving a fascinating insight into the exquisite French choral music of the late Renaissance, each Psalm is paired with a hymn setting of the same text by Louis Bourgeois harmonised by Claude Goudimel or Le Jeune himself. Framing the recording are hymn versions of the ‘Old Hundredth’ (Psalm 134) and the Song of Simeon. With musical activities ranging from intimate chamber/consort singing to large-scale choral consorts, from Anglican Evensong to Choral Compline, members of St Catharine’s College Choir have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of musical activities; and in its role as an ambassador for St Catharine's outside the College walls, the Choir’s concerts and recordings, educational and community work, has earned it a reputation for innovation and excellence.

Resonus Classics is pleased to present an exquisite album of orchestral and chamber works by the London-based contemporary composer Peter Fribbins. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor Robertas Servenikas are joined by violinist Philippe Graffin and trumpeter Christopher Hart in a programme of mostly world premiere recordings including Soliloquies for Trumpet & Strings and the substantial Concerto for Violin and Orchestra titled Dances, Elegies & Epitaphs dedicated to the memory of the composer's father. Completing this portrait is Capriccio for Orchestra, based on the hymn tune ''Abide with Me'' and the wind quintet ''In Xanadu''.

For TRACKLIST/PERFORMERS SUMMARY, please expand note below:

Named as one of the world’s finest choirs by Gramophone, Wells Cathedral Choir and their director Matthew Owens make their Resonus Classics debut with a programme of carols typically performed during the Christmas season in Wells – A Wells Christmas. With an irresistible array of popular carols and more recent offerings this scintillating and varied programme is vividly realised by the combined boy and girl choristers and Vicars Choral that continue the 1100-year-old tradition of music in Wells Cathedral. Included in this compelling programme are works by David Willcocks, Andrew Carter, John Rutter, and Kenneth Leighton, Thomas Hewitt Jones. Also included are world premieres by Bob Chilcott, Jefferson McConnaughey & Matthew Owens.

TRACKLIST:

1 Bob Chilcott: Sussex Carol
2 Andrew Carter: A maiden most gentle
3 Jefferson McConnaughey: In the bleak midwinter
4 Malcolm Sargent: Zither Carol
5 Matthew Owens: Lullay, my liking
6 David Willcocks: Deck the hall
7 John Rutter: Donkey Carol
8 David Willcocks: Tomorrow shall be my dancing day
9 Ralph Vaughan Williams: This is the truth sent from above
10 John Rutter: Sans Day Carol
11 Alfred Hollins: Christmas Cradle Song
12 Bob Chilcott: The Sparrow's Carol
13 Thomas Hewitt Jones: What child is this?
14 John Rutter: Jesus Child
15 John Rutter: I saw three ships
16 Kenneth Leighton: O leave your sheep
17 David Willcocks: Jingle, bells
18 Richard Elliott: I Saw Three Ships
19 Arthur Warell: A Merry Christmas
20 Peter Gritton: Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Following several exciting and critically acclaimed albums as a Baroque trio, this Amsterdam-based group is now augmented to become a chamber orchestra for the first time, and with a new moniker - Fantasticus XL! Their debut recording as an expanded group features three diverse early concerti that chart the differing forms of French and German forms of this evolving genre. The album consists of one concerto for each original member of the trio: Rie Kimura (Jean-Marie Leclair), Robert Smith (Johann Gottlieb Graun), and Guillermo Brachetta (Wilhelm Freidemann Bach).

The decades around 1600 bore witness to the flourishing of a remarkable musical tradition: the art of diminution, in which simple melodies were given exquisitely virtuosic embellishments, effectively creating new works. One such creation, Francesco Rognoni’s ornamentation of Palestrina’s Io son ferito, was captioned ‘con arte e maestria’ – with art and mastery – referring to the consummate craftsmanship displayed in its invention and performance. Giving new life to this tradition was the inspiration for this unique programme: alongside iconic works from the diminution canon, Monteverdi String Band members Oliver Webber and Steven Devine present newly ornamented versions of a selection of sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century works.

The Prince Regent's band, featuring noted brass players, make their recording debut on Resonous Classics with a celebration of the legendary Distin Family. During the mid-nineteenth century the Distin Family blazed a traila cross Europe and North America performing countless concerts and promoting new and exciting designs of brass instruments. The Distins originally performed on a mixture of natural and keyed brass instruments but halfway through their career, thanks to a chance meeting with Adolphe Sax in Paris in 1844, they adopted the new valved brass instruments, and in particular the new "saxhorn", with which their names became synonymous. In "The Celebrated Distin Family", period brass specialists The Prince Regent's Band have recreated the lost Distin Family repertoire, performing on their unique collection of original saxhorns and other fascinating brass instruments of the period.

For his latest solo recording, acclaimed organist Simon Nieminski returns to Resonus Classics with this pairing of two late organ works by the unjustly neglected twentieth-century French organist, pianist and composer Eugene Reuchsel. Both completed in the year before his death in 1988 these compelling collections, 'La Vie du Christ' and 'Bouquet de France', sum up Reuchsel's illustrious career as musician and composer and are here performed on the celebrated Rieger organ of St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. Simon Nieminski was born in London and is Assistant Director of Music at St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney. He studied in London at the Royal College of Music, at Cambridge University where he was Organ Scholar of Pembroke College, and as Organ Scholar of York Minster. Before moving to Australia in January 2018, he was Organist of St. Mary's Metropolitan Cathedral and Director of Music at The Robin Chapel in Edinburgh, having previously been organist and Master of the Music at Edinburgh's other (Scottish Episcopal) St. Mary's Cathedral.

Following much critical acclaim for his debut solo album Ciaccona, harpsichordist Guillermo Brachetta returns to the Resonous label with Concerto, a thrilling programme of works for one and two harpsichords composed seza ripieno. This stunning album features J.S. Bach's Italian Concerto, the second part of his Clavier-Übung and solo concerti from Wilhelm Friedemann Bacha nd Carl Heinrich Graun. Bachetta is joined by Menno van Delft for the original two-harpsichord version of J.S. Bach's Concerto a due cembali in C major, BWV 1061a. ''Superb performances by Brachetta'' (Financial Times)

Choral music has always played a significant and central role at Belfast Cathedral, since its consecration in 1904. This strong choral tradition continues to this day with the recently formed all-adult, fully professional vocal ensemble. This ‘new’ cathedral choir brings together some of the finest singers in Northern Ireland who lead the liturgy and worship of Belfast Cathedral and are featured here in their debut album for Resonus Classics. Featuring a varied program of seasonal carols from composers including Elizabeth Poston, John Rutter and Philip Ledger, this album celebrates Christmas from Northern Ireland’s national cathedral.

For this recording Organist Matthew Owens presents a diverse recital of some of the greatest Christmas music ever written for the instrument. Traditional tunes, whether Lutheran chorales, plainchant, French noëls, or medieval carols, have provided the inspiration for much Christmas organ music throughout the years, with much of this program made up of pieces based on such tunes, from J.S. Bach’s Canonic variations on Vom Himmel hoch to Louis-Claude Daquin’s Noël Suisse. This recital also draws on more contemporary sources and presents several world premiere recordings including Howard Skempton’s Christmas Bells and Gary Davison’s Seven Versets on Divinum Mysterium, both of which were written specially for this recording.

For most listeners, even those experienced with Christmas choral collections, the majority of original works and arrangements on this program will be unfamiliar. And that turns out to be a good thing—the selections are diverse enough yet compatible and complementary in style, all set with a sensitivity to text, to the spirit of the occasion—whether celebratory or contemplative—and, importantly, to singability and listenability.

So many Christmas collections in recent years, for some reason mostly from British choirs, have to their credit highlighted new music—but much of it unsingable by any but the most accomplished ensembles, and so difficult for the ear to reconcile alongside starkly more “accessible” works that the listening experience becomes uneasy and even intermittently unpleasant. Which is why I warily listened to the first several selections here—and found myself thoroughly and continuously surprised as the disc progressed. Here is a choral Christmas program that you can listen to straight through without fear, combining the delight of discovery—new composers, new music and texts, new arrangements of traditional carols—with the comfort and joy of a few beloved, favorite, familiar anchors, from Joubert’s There is no rose and Howells’ A spotless rose, to Warlock’s Bethlehem Down.

Beginning with Malcolm Archer’s A little child there is yborn, its bouncy, jovial character reminiscent of a John Rutter setting, the program progresses through a wide array of traditional texts and sometimes tunes—The angel Gabriel; In the bleak midwinter; Tomorrow shall be my dancing day; The Holly and the Ivy; Coventry Carol—but in inventive and always agreeable new realizations by composers and arrangers such as Paul Spicer (whose In a Field as I Lay is a highlight), Gareth Treseder (Blessed be that Maid Marie—another gem), Michael Higgins, Becky McGlade, Betty Roe, and Sally Beamish. And it doesn’t hurt that the singing by the 17 voices of Sonoro—yes, a professional British chamber choir—is consistently well-tuned, perfectly balanced, and projects a vibrant, characterful sound that gives the impression of concert-like spontaneity—a rare and welcome effect on a recording. The sooner you get this the more time you’ll have to listen. Highly recommended.

– ClassicsToday.com

Missouri-based choir Kantorei of Kansas City and their director Chris Munce return to Resonus Classics with a sparkling recording of carols and motets for Christmas. With a compelling programme of Renaissance and contemporary works for the festive season that presents the Christmas story and the journey to Bethlehem, including a number of world premiere recording. Kantorei explores rarely heard works by Renaissance composers such as Giovanni Bassano, Melchior Vulpius, Jakob Reiner and Blasius Amon combined with contemporary composers including Matthew Culloton, Ivo Antognini, R. Douglas Helvering and Kim André Arnesen among others.

The acclaimed pianist Mark Bebbington marks his Resonus Classics debut, and the start of a new French music series, with a major new recording of works by Francis Poulenc. Joined by conductor Jan Latham-Koenig, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, this varied programme of works for piano features the Piano Concerto (the last of his five concertos) and the rarely-recorded piano version of the Concert champêtre so often performed by Poulenc himself. Bebbington is also joined by oboist John Roberts and bassoonist Jonathan Davies for the Trio for Piano, Oboe & Bassoon, and the Sonata for Oboe & Piano.