Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Leading young composer Will Todd performs a unique fusion of sacred choral music and jazz in his 'Mass in Blue'. This central work is complemented by beautiful musical settings of religous texts, infused with a highly individual and melodic style, bringing the composer's life-long love of traditional choral music into the 21st century with spiritual sensitivity and a contemporary edge. An accomplished jazz musician, Will Todd has played piano, saxophone and clarinet in Jazz bands from an early age and in 1999 he toured Europe, the Far and Middle East and America with his Jazz Quartet. Soprano Bethany Halliday brings an eclectic vocal style to her performance. The daughter of a Baptist pastor, her early influences were gospel, in particular the recordings of Mahalia Jackson, one of the world's greatest gospel singers. She went on to train as an opera singer but has maintained a love of Jazz and gospel music. His extensive output includes opera, musicals, oratorio, orchestral works and works for children and amateur performers. His work has been featured on Radio 3's In Tune, Classic FM and the Radio 2 Arts Programme and he has had performances of his music all over the UK as well as in the USA.

Nigel Short and his choir of professional singers, Tenebrae, made their debut on disc with a CD of music for Advent and Christmas, released in 2002, entitled The Dream of Herod (SIGCD046). They return to seasonal music with this CD, most of which is brand new, though a few tracks were recorded a while ago.

The programme is divided, broadly, into three categories. Quite a number of items are modern arrangements of old favourites. Nigel Short himself contributes very pleasing arrangements of Quem Pastores? and Away in a Manger. Both of these are not only effective but seem also to evidence affection for the original carols. Though some may feel the performance of Away in a Manger is rather on the slow side there’s no denying the chaste purity of the setting and the unnamed solo soprano who sings verse one does so exquisitely. Jonathan Rathbone’s arrangement of Silent Night is also very welcome, encasing the familiar tune in slow-moving close harmonies. While enjoying these and other new arrangements of old standards, however, it’s good to find that, just like his descants for popular congregational carols, the arrangements by Sir David Willcocks of Quelle est cette odeur agreeable? and Tomorrow Shall be my Dancing Day more than stand the test of time.

Mention of Sir David in a Christmas context inevitably leads one to the name of John Rutter. In fact I believe that Sir David was instrumental in starting Rutter off on his immensely successful career by championing Nativity Carol, one of his very earliest Christmas pieces, which he wrote while still a Cambridge undergraduate. Here it is once more, beautifully sung by Tenebrae. Incidentally, though one very often hears it accompanied by orchestra I prefer it with a gentle organ accompaniment - as here - since that reinforces the intimacy of this lovely little carol. Nigel Short has chosen two more Rutter carols, both of which I think are among Rutter’s finest. He and his expert choir give exquisite, controlled performances of What Sweeter Music? and There is a Flower, though I have to say that the former is taken a bit slowly for my taste - I seem to recall that Rutter himself, in his own recording, was just a touch swifter, to the music’s advantage. There is a Flower opens and closes with a solo voice. Previously, in my experience, this has been a treble or soprano but here the solo is allotted to a baritone. Though the singer does well I don’t think the choice quite works; when sung by a male voice the melody - and the words - rather loses the pure innocence that a high voice can bring.

The Rutter items fall into the second category of offerings in this programme: original compositions. We also find Tavener’s The Lamb and Howells’s A Spotless Rose. Both are beautifully done but, though I greatly admire both settings, I do feel that their near-ubiquity in programmes such as this is in danger of devaluing them and making them seem routine. I acknowledge that both are popular items - deservedly so - and that popularity sells discs but it would be nice if choirs remembered that Howells in particular wrote several other fine Christmas settings. By comparison, Adrian Peacock’s Veni, veni is scarcely well known but I hope its exposure here will encourage other choirs to investigate it for it is a good piece that grows in excitement from almost nothing until it reaches an abrupt end.

But if I had to single out one piece deserving of wide currency then I’d unhesitatingly nominate Jonathan Rathbone’s The Oxen. In the booklet Nigel Short describes this as a “ravishing setting” and he’s spot on in that judgement. Rathbone takes Thomas Hardy’s poem and clothes it in wonderful, luminous close harmonies that move gently and slowly. This hushed setting for unaccompanied voices struck me as a superb response to the poem and when I played the disc for the first time I replayed this item immediately on hearing it. I just regret that it’s followed immediately on the disc by the necessarily boisterous Gaudete, which rather breaks the spell that Rathbone has cast.

The third category of music in the programme accommodates the lighter, secular pieces. Jingle Bells is presented in a clever, jazzy arrangement and Nigel Short’s version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas is also effective. Best of the three items in this category, I think, is Andrew Carter’s The Twelve Days of Christmas. This is ingenious and entertaining, though I’ll reserve judgement on the farmyard noises that the singers contribute, presumably at Carter’s behest.

Tenebrae perform these three secular items with evident relish and, indeed, the technical accomplishment that’s in evidence throughout this recital is of the highest order. They bring an effortless excellence to all their singing and deliver the entire programme with supreme professionalism and a good deal of commitment. I can see this disc giving a lot of pleasure this Christmas; I shall certainly be listening to it with great enjoyment during the Festive Season.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Vital and individual readings.

There’s really not much to say about this one. Sir Andrew Davis in an all-Elgar programme ought to be a safe pair of hands, and so it turns out, and more besides.

The programme opens with the Enigma Variations, the phrasing of the theme as loving as one has ever heard it. The end of the first variation, C.A.E., depicting the composer’s wife, may be a little too drawn out for some tastes, but Elgar often expressed his affection for her in language at least as sweetly sentimental as this. The showy variations are splendid, but the more intimate ones are even more successful, and one comes away, perhaps more than in many performances, with the idea that some of Elgar’s friends were a melancholy lot. The cellist, Basil Nevinson, in a highly expressive reading, has rarely sounded as sad as he does here. The solo part is beautifully played, and this seems the moment to praise the outstanding orchestral playing throughout the disc, and the brilliantly characterful solo playing in particular. The Enigma Variations has been recorded many, many times, and each listener will have a favourite. I am very attached to Barbirolli in this work, though I sometimes wonder if this is not as much for sentimental reasons as for musical ones. The present performance is as fine as any I have heard, and I don’t think anyone who acquires it will be less than delighted. The recording is particularly detailed, bringing out a few points of orchestration I had never heard before, though you have to turn up the volume a fair bit to get enough punch in the louder passages, which means that the softer ones lose a little of their intimacy.

The performance of In the South is, if anything, even finer. The opening is surely the most exuberant music Elgar ever composed, and this comes over wonderfully well in this performance. Once again the orchestra is in inspired form, and this extends to the gentler, more atmospheric passages too. The work, always a winner in the concert hall, is nonetheless not one of the composer’s more coherent creations from a formal point of view, but Sir Andrew’s subtle control of tempo between the different sections disguises that very successfully. There are passages in the work where the composer runs the risk of overstepping the boundaries of taste, too, and it is a mark of the conductor’s skill that they are totally convincing. I’m thinking in particular of the passage based on hammered, repeated falling fifths (beginning at 7:12) where the listener is not sure whether Sir Andrew is moving the music on or not, only that the pulse never drags, successfully avoiding any suggestion of bombast. It’s a very fine performance and, like the Enigma, is greeted with enthusiastic applause.

This performance of the adorable Serenade will not appeal to those who want to indulge themselves, but is likely to please those who feel that Elgar knew what he wanted as regards tempo. Even so, the first and last movements here, amongst the briskest performances I know, still fall short of Elgar’s markings which do seem very fast indeed. The music is gracefully phrased, skipping rather than lilting, and is full of affection despite the conductor’s unwillingness to linger. The central slow movement, at a similarly flowing tempo, is very moving, wistful and passionate by turns, just as it should be.

The name “Philhamonia Orchestra” - albeit in trendy all lower case fashion - is given greater prominence on this disc than “Signum”, and the back cover of the booklet carries information about other Philharmonia performances on the same label. As a collaborative effort it can only be welcomed, especially at mid-price. There are very readable and informative notes by M. Ross. Newcomers to Elgar and seasoned listeners hoping for vital and individual readings of these particular works need not hesitate.

-- William Hedley, MusicWeb International

Praise cannot be too high for Cordaria. For me this is quite simply the best recording of this music I have ever heard... Their blend, sensitivity and recorded balance are always immaculate, beautiful and at times tear-jerking. Highly recommended.

The ‘Mystery Sonatas’ consist of 15 short suites for violin and continuo whose inspiration lies in the so-called 15 mysteries of the Virgin Mary; effectively 15 meditations which are sometimes directly programmatic and sometimes more elusive. They divide into three groups of five. The Joyful Mysteries are based on episodes in Jesus’s early life, the Nativity for example; the middle group are the Sorrowful Mysteries like ‘The Crown of Thorns’ etc; and the final group are the Glorious Mysteries which continue the story from the Resurrection to the Assumption and then to the Coronation of the Virgin. The whole work is capped off by a grand unaccompanied Passacaglia for Violin. The whole sequence lasts about two hours and a quarter and is therefore on two discs. Sadly the middle group of five has had to be divided, with the last one, the Crucifixion, on the second disc.

Biber composed these works for Archbishop Max Gandolph. Peter Holman, who I am delighted to find writing programme notes for this disc as he has a proven track record of expertise in the field of 17th Century instrumental music, tells us that "Biber pointed out in his dedication that Max Gandolph was strongly in favour of the Rosary in Salzburg". Also we learn that "the cycle was used in the traditional Rosary devotions in September and October … and the faithful as they walked in procession would have listened to appropriate biblical passages and commentaries and to Biber’s music whilst meditating of their Rosaries". The manuscript also contains fifteen elegant roundels, which were relevant to the subject of each sonata. Nine of these have been reprinted in black and white and are scattered around the booklet. There is also a musical quotation from the Sonata XI and the violin tunings needed for each sonata are given. Some are quite extraordinary. But what makes these sonatas virtuoso compositions for the performer and (I am sure for the composer) is that once re-tuned the notation remains as usual, to correspond with the continuo harmony. This technique is called Scordatura and many violinists dread it. Walter Reiter appears undaunted and unflappable, more so than any other player I have ever heard. The reason for some of these tunings is quite obvious and indeed programmatic. For example the beautiful ‘Ascension’ sonata has a C major tuning, g-c-g-d. Contrast that with the 9th Sonata ‘Jesus carries his own cross’ in A minor, tuned to straining point c-e-a-e in other words raised a 4th giving a rather strangled effect.

Apart from these unique sets of tunings there are other programmatic elements in the music. The ‘Resurrection’ sonata is the only one in one continuous and untitled movement. It begins in total stillness - the dawn of Easter Morning. The free recitativic tempo gradually builds so that in the brightness of the morning sun [c.2’15"] the empty tomb is displayed. Then enters, at first quietly, the Easter Chorale melody ‘Surrexit Christus Hodie’. Incidentally the tuning in this sonata is so odd that the effect is literally unearthly. In the ‘Ascension’ sonata (number 12) the violinist is expected with his terrifically difficult double stoppings to imitate a choir of trumpets in the ‘Aria tubicinium’ [track 7].

In the ‘Crucifixion’ sonata the rending of the veil over ‘the holy of holies’ is vividly portrayed (track 4).

Most of the sonatas have several movements and several have dance titles. Some have Aria’s followed by Variations. Dances include ‘Allmans’ and ‘Correntes’ which are slipped curiously into movements like ‘The Visitation’ sonata and the ‘Nativity’ sonata. Presumably on the grounds of ‘why should the devil have the best tunes?’

Praise cannot be too high for Cordaria. For me this is quite simply the best recording of this music I have ever heard. Credit should go of course to Walter Reiter. Timothy Roberts on the chamber organ or harpsichord and Elizabeth Kenny on the theorbo along with Joanna Levine on the gamba with Frances Kelly, a very experienced influence, on the harp and Mark Levey on a Lirone make a ‘dream team’.

Their blend, sensitivity and recorded balance are always immaculate, beautiful and at times tear-jerking. Highly recommended.

-- Gary Higginson, MusicWeb International

David Goode continues his new series of the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, played on the Metzler Söhne organ of Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge. This tenth volume includes the mighty Passacaglia and Fugue, BWV 582 - one of Bach's most popular and influential works for the instrument. David Goode is organist at Eton College, combining this post with a flourishing performing career. A music scholar at Eton, and then organ scholar at King's College, Cambridge, he studied organ with David Sanger and in Amsterdam with Jacques van Oortmerssen. He has also developed a profile as a composer: a set of anthems has been published, together with recordings by the choir of King's College, Cambridge; and his Blitz Requiem was performed in September 2013 by the Bach Choir at St. Paul's Cathedral, and broadcast on Classic FM. He played the AGO Convention in June 2016, and was a juror at the 2017 St. Alban's International Competition.

David Goode continues his new series of the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, played on the Metzler Söhne organ of Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge. is the eighth volume for June 2018.

This digital-only recording is available from all major download stores and streaming services in MP3, CD Quality and Studio Quality/24-bit audio. It is also available to buy as a ‘Presto CD’ – made to order by Presto Classical with a printed booklet and inlay.

Tenebrae join the Aurora Orchestra with mezzo soprano Dame Sarah Connolly and narrator Simon Callow for ‘A Walk with Ivor Gurney’, an album of choral music celebrating the works of Ivor Gurney whose promising career as a composer was interrupted by World War I. Alongside four pieces of Gurney’s own music are works by his contemporaries, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Herbert Howells. The recording features a new piece by Judith Bingham commissioned by Tenebrae in 2013 for the choir with Dame Sarah Connolly. Described as “phenomenal” (The Times) and “devastatingly beautiful” (Gramophone Magazine), award-winning choir Tenebrae, under the direction of Nigel Short, is one of the world’s leading vocal ensembles renowned for its passion and precision. “For purity and precision of tone, and flawless intonation, Nigel Short’s chamber choir Tenebrae is pretty much unbeatable.” (The Times)

Two major international forces at the leading edge of contemporary music - The Smith Quartet and American composer Steve Reich - come together for new recordings for three of his most inspiring works. Triple Quartet for three string quartets, Reich's personal dedication to the late Yehudi Menuhin, Duet, and the haunting Different Trains for string quartet and electronic tape.

The choral works of Duruflé, like his organ works, are small in number but beautifully crafted. Frequently written and rewritten until he was completely satisfied, he was a composer who rethought and re-configured his music right up to the moment he had to let go of it. Often described as a man out of step with his times, his pieces look back to Gregorian chant and plainsong at a time when the musical life of his home city of Paris was steeped in radical new compositional ideas – a testament perhaps to Duruflé’s enduring love of France’s choral heritage. In a new recording produced by Grammy® winning producer Blanton Alspaugh, the Houston Chamber Choir are led by artistic director Robert Simpson on their first release with Signum Records.

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REVIEWS:

Recorded in warm, though not too reverberant acoustics, the choir’s tone is open and bright, and they and their conductor are sensitive to Duruflé’s demands. While they can be dramatic when needed, nothing is ever overstated – a temptation in this work, where there is little variety in tempi. The four unaccompanied Gregorian motets show offthe choir’s strengths to their best advantage.

– Choir & Organ

The unique selling point here is the highly polished, virtually flawless sound of the Houston Chamber Choir. Here is a group that clearly enjoys the art of choral singing and in Robert Simpson they have a director whose focus on producing a superbly homogenous sound makes for warm, comfortable listening.

– Gramophone

The two works on this release are highly contrasting- Johannes Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet and David Bruce’s Gumboots. David Bruce describes his inspiration for Gumboots: “…it was born out of the brutal labour conditions in South Africa under Apartheid, in which black miners were chained together and wore Gumboots while they worked in the flooded gold mines… slapping the boots and chains was used by the workers as a form of communication which was otherwise banned… this later developed into a form of dance.” Clarinetist Julian Bliss performs here alongside the Carducci Quartet.

For this album, renowned classical guitarist Christoph Denoth joins with the London Symphony Orchestra under conductor Jesus Lopez Cobos to bring us a beautiful recording of compositions by Lorenzo Palomo (b. 1938), Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999), and Joquin Malats (1872-1912). The title track of the album, Palomo's Nocturnos de Andalucia, was composed for Pepe Romero. The full suite for guitar and orchestra was premiered in Berlin on January 27, 1996, with Romero performing. Christoph Denoth began his concert career at age 15. He regularly performs with chamber ensembles, such as the Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain and the Offenburger Streichtrio. He also performs solo concerts internationally. Joquin Malats' Serenata Espanola is arranged for this recording by Christoph Denoth and Jonathan Rathbone, and is the world premiere recording.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Described by the London music publisher as 'Very Improveing and Delightful to all lovers of that instrument' The first Part of the Division Flute was originally issued for the Baroque treble recorder in 1705. Murphy's love of the recorder inspired her to record some of the best known recorder music, as well as some of the most neglected, from a collection that has never been fully recorded before. A fantastic disc of musicians at the forefront of early music today.

Classical Music

Classical Music

The first release in a new partnership between Classical Opera and Signum Records begins with Mozart’s remarkable sacred singspiel Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots, composed when he was just eleven. The music is full of tender beauty, dynamism and descriptive flair, and the young composer’s innate sense of understanding and sympathy for the human condition already shines through.

The story follows the efforts of The Spirit of Christianity (Andrew Kennedy) – aided by Divine Justice (Cora Burggraaf ) and Divine Mercy (Sarah Fox) – to win back the heart of a Lapsed Christian (Allan Clayton) as he lies fast asleep. In opposition to this however stands The Spirit of Worldliness (Sophie Bevan), who urges the Christian to forget what The Spirit shows him and to follow her pleasure-seeking philosophies. As Justice and Mercy withdraw to observe, The Spirit of Christianity seeks to win back the lapsed Christian, but will this lost soul be able to resist the temptations of indulgence and short-term satisfaction that Worldliness offers?

The second disc in this 2CD Set is an Enhanced CD, with an exclusive 10-minute feature on the making of the recording additional libretto and programme note translations. Full German to English translations included in the booklet.

The third volume in our series of Charles-Marie Widor’s Organ Symphonies, performed by Joseph Nolan on the magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ of L’église de la Madeleine, Paris. Bridging the generations from Mendelssohn to Messiaen, Empire to Republic, Widor was born to the organ. His Lyonnaise kinsfolk were organ-builders, he showed early talent for the instrument, and for decades was the embodiment of its might and splendour across the Gallic domain - his ‘Organ Symphonies’ were genre-defining in their influence.

Joseph Nolan is an internationally renowned organist, acclaimed as ‘brilliant and such an astute musician’ (Gramophone UK). He was appointed to Her Majesty’s Chapels Royal, St James’s Palace in 2004, and has since been invited to perform and record in some of the world’s premiere venues – including the refurbished Organ of Buckingham Palace Ballroom and the Organ of Saint- Sulpice in Paris.

"Gothic music meets Gothic organ here in performances that encompass a broad expressive spectrum from quiet meditation to dramatic thunder and lightning.” The Times

Classical Music

Classical Music