Includes christmas carol(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Helicon. Soloists: Chris Norman, Ken Kolodner, Robin Bullock.

For the last several years, sacred choral music has been experiencing a resurgence in popularity. RADIANT LIGHT captures the emotion and power of the live choral performance from one of the top choirs in the United States.
Recorded at the choir's home at Trinity Church in Boston, Massachusetts, the Trinity Choir's sound is augmented by the warmth of the performance space. The three dimensional sound is of particular note on John Tavener's "The Lamb," one of the most popular compositions on the album.
Directed by Brian Jones, the Trinity Choir lives up to its reputation as a world-class choir. Accompanied by organist Ross Wood, the choir provides a winning performance that will please recent converts to choral music as well as to long-time fans of the genre.

Classical Music

Shvedov, K.N.: Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

Anyone familiar with La Nef's other recordings knows that this group is very hard to categorize. Its repertoire tends to be focused on medieval sources and its instruments come from that same period, but the group's aim is to give its programs a kind of modern flavor by revising and reworking ancient tunes and texts, occasionally composing original material, adding elements of drama, and organizing it all together into a cohesive theatrical presentation that centers on a theme or story. In this case, we are treated to one of the earliest known stories of the quest for the Holy Grail. The text, by 12th-century writer Chrétien de Troyes, was adapted by La Nef and set to various authentic tunes (and a few newly composed ones), performed with engaging style and with a real sense of dramatic flow. You should know that this recording is only Part One of the story, in which we learn of Perceval, his early life in the forest, his abandonment of his mother in order to join King Arthur's knights, and details of several of his early exploits. The music includes many beautiful melodies--some sung by the excellent countertenor Daniel Taylor, who plays Perceval--and first rate instrumental playing, especially by Sylvain Bergeron, a master of various plucked stringed instruments, who here performs on an "early guitar". Part Two is next, in which we follow our hero to the castle of the Grail, where he meets the Fisher King, the Young Maid, the Hideous Damsel, and the Hermit. Stay tuned. --David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Includes sonata(s) by Salomone Rossi, Biagio Marini. Ensemble: Ensemble Rebel. Conductor: Jörg-Michael Schwarz.
Includes suite(s) by Salomone Rossi. Ensemble: Ensemble Rebel. Conductor: Jörg-Michael Schwarz.
Includes work(s) by Giovanni Buonamente. Ensemble: Ensemble Rebel. Conductor: Jörg-Michael Schwarz.

Spain Rondinella (La): Songs of the Sephardim

Laura Risk, Fiddle / Jacqueline Schwab, Piano

Classical Music

Choral Concert: Saint Clement's Choir - HOWELLS, H. / BAX, A

Bach: Mass in B Minor

The Ladyes Delight is a program of "entertainment music" of Elizabethan England, performed with unserpassed musical matery and panache by the Baltimore Consort.

*First Recording on CD.

Eduardo Mata leads a virile performance of Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky cantata, wherein the Dallas Symphony’s bold and occasionally brash playing commands your attention–especially so in The Crusaders In Pskov and Battle on the Ice–while the Dallas Symphony Chorus musters up a darkly robust sound that sets and maintains the music’s grim mood. This grimness turns tender for the Field of the Dead, where the chorus provides a soothing cushion for Mariana Paunova’s rich-voiced, Slavic-toned alto solo. Even so, Mata’s rendition sounds mild after the eviscerating and enthralling performances by Ancerl and Schippers. Abbado’s is another strong rendition that completes the troika of great Nevsky recordings. Mata has the advantage of Dorian’s vivid, high-impact recording which has held up very well since it was made in 1993.

Good recorded sound also informs the coupled Shostakovich Symphony No. 9. Again the Dallas Symphony’s playing is technically beyond reproach, and Mata’s keen conducting illuminates Shostakovich’s unique orchestral timbres and biting rhythms. The opening Allegro is brisk and bright, while the Moderato charms with its graceful melancholy. However, the rather gingerly played trumpet solo in the Presto scherzo points up the lack of edginess in this performance, something you’ll find in abundance in Rudolf Barshai’s gripping rendition on Brilliant Classics. So, while not the last word in either work, this disc serves as an excellent memento of the Dallas Symphony’s Mata period.

-- Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

In Scotland we are fortunate to enjoy a living oral tradition which features the performance of lengthy ballads to simple melodies in a manner which would certainly have been recognisable to our forebears in previous centuries, and it seems sensible to draw on this tradition when reconstructing a performance of 'Graysteil.' This cross-fertilisation between the traditional and art music of Scotland also serves helpfullly to undermine our modern habit of catagorising music, an irrelevance which would never even have occurred to James IV or his 'fithelaris'! - D. James Ross

The revival of the lute and its repertoire in the later twentieth century has been so thorough that it is difficult now to remember how much a "distant shore" the instrument seemed to musicians even a few generations ago. Like the cornett or the viola da gamba or the harpsichord, it was an instrument - and a repertoire, and a set of performance practices - that was all but dead for many years, that needed to be revived more or less from scratch. As for the lute music of the later Baroque period, it represents an instrument long past its heyday: even late-Baroque musicians themselves considered the lute a distant shore - an anachronism.

Gershwin: Porgy and Bess

An American Tapestry

Foster, S.: Sweetly She Sleeps, My Alice Fair / Norman, C.:

Includes branle(s) by Jean Baptiste Besard. Soloist: Ronn McFarlane.
Includes pavane(s) by Anonymous. Soloist: Ronn McFarlane.
Includes pavane(s) for lute by Vincenzo Capirola. Soloist: Ronn McFarlane.
Includes saltarello(s) for lute by Simone Molinaro. Soloist: Ronn McFarlane.

BRAHMS, J.: Piano Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 (The Ames Piano Quar

Falla, M. De: Amor Brujo (El) / 7 Canciones Populares Espano

Mendelssohn, Felix: Cello Sonata No. 2 / Ben-Haim, P.: Songs

Bach, the lute, and the lautenwerk (lute-harpsichord) have fascinated me for years. Upon investigating Bach's connection with the two instruments, one is immediately faced with the striking absence of one vital piece of evidence: though we know that many lautenwerks existed, none, to our knowledge, have survived into our time. The lautenwerk, the name by which it is usually known in German and English, was a harpsichord like instrument of one or two manuals with the same range as lute, but somewhat lower than the harpsichord. It was strung with gut rather than brass. - Nigel North, London, June 1994