The fourth album on Ondine by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir is dedicated to the composer’s complete works for mixed choir. The award-winning choir, one of the finest of its kind internationally, is conducted here by leading Finnish choir director Heikki Seppänen. Choral music was a genre in which Sibelius showed interest from his student days to the near close of his life. This double-disc set includes patriotic works, works closely connected to the Finnish national epic Kalevala, student works, Christmas songs, works based on Finnish poetry, works written for school (including Three Songs for American Schools) as well as works written for academic promotions, inauguration ceremonies and different official occasions. It also includes two versions of the famous Finlandia Hymn. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir’s first Ondine release was given an ‘Editor’s Choice’ by the Gramophone Magazine and ‘Disc of the Year’ by German weekly Die Zeit.

REVIEW:

The Finnish choral tradition was rich and active when Sibelius came of age as a composer in the late 1880s, and he wrote choral works all his life. The pieces on this rewarding recording range from folk songs suffused with Finnish character to enigmatic works with sometimes dark lyrics. There are festival and school songs, patriotic anthems, a cantata for an academic degree ceremony and, inevitably, two versions of “Finlandia.” Most of the pieces are a cappella. Many unfold in clear, block-chord settings of the texts. If you want to stump friends with a guessing game, play the beguiling, slightly strange “Glade of Tuoni” from this recording and ask them to identify the composer. You’ll win, as you will by picking up this album.

– New York Times

• The poem cycle Canto General by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, about Latin America's struggle against colonialism, is a protest against lethargy and feelings of impotence by drawing on the roots, making historical contexts transparent and restoring man's own possibilities of development in awareness. • Hence, the Canto General has become a universal work with the message: "a different world is possible!" • Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis arranged parts of the poem cycle into an Oratorio for Two Solo Voices with a Mixed Choir and Orchestra. • This recording by the Choir of Erste Bank, supported by Protestant Choirs from Vienna, Lower Austria and Styria (choir master: Sybille von Both), soloists Julia Schilinski, mezzo soprano, and Sergio Cattaneo, baritone, and the Orquesta de nuestra tierra is conducted by Leopold Griessler.

The reissue of a glorious recording of Bach’s sacred masterwork, the St. Matthew Passion! This performance from the 70ties brings together two of the most esteemed choirs of Germany: the Thomanerchor Leipzig and the Dresdner Kreuzchor, both with traditions going back to the times of the great Cantor Johann Sebastian. The Leipzig Gewandhausorchester and the choirs are conducted by the two brothers Mauersberger, Rudolf and Erhard, both famous for their deep understanding of the Baroque musical language. An excellent line up of soloists: Peter Schreier, Theo Adam, Hermann Christian Polter, Hans Joachim Rotsch. “Deeply moving”, the Gramophone wrote of this performance at the time of release, indeed a set to treasure as the testimony of a deeply felthistorical tradition of Bach performance.

Composed in 1954 for the 400th anniversary of the founding of São Paulo, Ameríndia is the composer's largest symphony. Effectively a hybrid symphony and oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra, it is memorable for it's stylistic variety and breadth, drawing on many different sources of Brazilian music. This recording is based on a newly revised edition made by Editora Criadores do Brasil (the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra's publishing house) in collaboration with the Academia Brasileira de Música. Born in Brazil in 1934, Isaac Karabtchevsky studied conducting and composition in Germany under Wolfgang Fortner, Pierre Boulez, and Carl Ueter. He has held posts at the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra (OSB), La Fenice in Venice, and the Tonku¨nstler in Vienna. He is currently director of the Petrobras Symphony of Rio de Janeiro and the Heliopolis Symphony, an orchestra composed of young musicians, most of them from disadvantaged communities in São Paulo.

Classical Music

Also available on DVD

Jeanne d’Arc au Bucher, written by the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger in 1938, is a fascinating oratorio. The text by Paul Claudel is constructed like a flashback, in which Joan looks back over her life just before she dies.

Marion Cotillard plays Joan with intensity and sincerity. The last moments of the martyr’s life, illustrated by the evocative and innovative music of Honegger, resound like a heartrending cry. With an exceptional cast of performers, this live recording offers a gripping new version of one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century music.

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REVIEWS:

Cotillard movingly captures Jeanne's wildly contrasting moods while Xavier Gallas is consoling yet determined in supporting her. Most impressive of all, though, are the searing choral contributions that are convincing in their heartfelt gallic fervor, from an oppressed people, via baying crowd to angelic host.

– BBC Music Magazine

Cotillard marvelously captures Jeanne's innocence, toughness and terrifying doubts; Gallais is compassionate, tender, and at times tellingly fierce. The impact is immeasurably heightened on DVD by our being able to see both the sorrowing beauty of Gallais's face and the extraordinary way Cotillard's eyes let us know exactly what is going on in Jeanne's mind and soul.

– Gramophone

William Hawley (b. 1950) is one of the central figures in today's American choral music renaissance. As a student at Ithaca College and the California Institute of the Arts, he composed avant-garde instrumental works, and even flirted with minimalism. The launch of his Two Motets in 1981 demonstrated a shift to vocal music and a more emotionally direct style. His continuing American choral music has helped establish compositional trends since adopted by Morten Lauridsen, Eric Whitacre, and the like. Winner: American Prize in Choral Performance and the Margaret Hillis Award.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

By Bach's time, the Reformation had fundamentally altered the traditional forms of church service, and in German churches Latin had yielded to the country's own language. To a limited extent, however, the Latin mass text did remain in use in the Protestant church – in particular the Kyrie and Gloria sections, which were often set to music as an entity in their own right. Albeit incomplete, this form of mass setting was termed ‘Missa’, a name it retained even in Bach’s day. Nowadays, to differentiate them from complete settings, these pieces are often referred to as 'Lutheran Masses'. Bach's famous Mass in B minor, later expanded into a complete mass, began its existence as a work of this type, and four other examples from Bach's pen have survived. They all make extensive use of earlier compositions, and the two masses on the present disc consist entirely of so-called parodies: reworkings of arias and choruses from cantatas, in which Bach demonstrates his skill in adapting existing music for new uses. Performed by Bach Collegium Japan – who under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki have already recorded the original settings as part of their acclaimed cantata series – the Missae BWV 235 and 236 are here combined with four separate settings of the Sanctus, another section of the traditional mass that in Bach's time could be heard in the churches of Leipzig during important feast days. Two of these are original compositions, whereas BWV 241, and possibly also 240, is an arrangement of a setting by another composer. The 'Kyrie – Christe' BWV Anh. 26 is also an example of how Bach in his task of providing the music for church services used music by other composers. In this case he turned to a movement from a mass by his contemporary Francesco Durante from Naples, but adapted it for his own purposes by composing a new setting – a duet for soprano and alto – of the Christe eleison section, labelling it 'Christe di Bach' in his autograph.

Review:

Suzuki's solo 'A team' are out in force and generally deliver excellent and communicative quasi-arias...The choruses are perhaps a touch less well-heeled and defined than usual, in both consistency and balance, but Collegium Musicum Japan compellingly advocate both Masses as well as the festive Kyrie and Sanctus settings.

– Gramophone

The late Sir Michael Tippett’s oratorio A Child Of Our Time both re-affirmed and transformed the genre. + The most striking and brilliant transformation is the composer’s choice of the Negro Spiritual in place of the congregational hymn. + Composed between 1939-41 and premiered in 1944, it was born out of a very personal sense of human deprivation and hardship then afoot in 1930s England. + Recorded in 1992, this Chandos re-release, featuring an all African-American singing cast and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, honors the legacy of the late English conductor Sir Richard Hickox.

Classical Music

Mahler Contemporaries, a live concert recording from the Gustav Mahler Festival 2014, offers a range of well and lesser-known songs by friends, contemporaries and collaborators of Mahler, including Hugo Wolf, Pauline Viardot, Hans Rott, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schönberg and Bruno Walter, among others. The world premiére recording of Czech composer Josef Bohuslav Foerster’s Stabat Mater, Op. 56 opens proceedings; several of his songs also feature. Sung by winners of Karlsbad Int’l Singing Competition, the concert was recorded in the same Jihlava Church where Mahler started to listen to music.

Described as “phenomenal” (The Times) and “devastatingly beautiful” (Gramophone Magazine), the BBC Music Magazine Award award-winning choir Tenebrae, under the direction of Nigel Short, one of the world’s finest vocal ensembles renowned for its passion and precision return to disc on Signum with a sumptuous album of Carols, Hymns and other celebratory works for Christmas. Among the composers to feature on this disc are John Gardner, Peter Warlock, Philip Ledger and Arnold Bax, A singer of great acclaim, Nigel Short was a member of the world-renowned vocal ensemble The King’s Singers from 1994–2000. Upon leaving the group, he formed Tenebrae, a virtuosic choir that embraced his dedication to passion and precision.

REVIEW:

If you’re looking for a collection of Christmas music that includes a lot of pieces you don’t often hear, don’t overlook this outstanding release. Lovers of choral music will need no introduction to Tenebrae, a superb mixed chorus of around 16. This is their third album of Christmas music, and it is the most interesting of the three.

– American Record Guide

Commissioned in 2009 to celebrate the restoration of Trinity Cathedral in Columbia, South Carolina, John Fitz Rogers's Magna Mysteria is a seven-movement, 45-minute work for soprano, chorus and children's chorus, and chamber orchestra that delves into "great mysteries" (magna mysteria). Weaving together Latin biblical texts and poetic verse from the sixth-century philosopher Boethius, the composition explores ideas of home and the seeking of home, the elevation of home to a metaphorical or spiritual realm, and the nature of time. Magna Mysteria is at once complex yet accessible, rooted in tradition (from Brahms and Faure to Britten and Stravinsky) yet wholly contemporary. This encore performance recorded in 2014 features soprano Martha Guth, first prize winner at the 2007 Wigmore Hall Int'l Song Competition, as well as the combined adult and children's choirs of Trinity Cathedral, under the direction of conductor and choirmaster Jared Johnson.

Inspired by Haydn's trips to England, where he first heard Handel's oratorios, The Creation is widely considered Haydn's crowning masterpiece. Set for three vocal soloists, four-part chorus, and a large Classical orchestra, there seems little doubt that Haydn wanted a big sound (by the standard of his day) for this work. Based on both the biblical Book of Genesis and Milton's Paradise Lost, the oratorio was premiered in the US by the Handel and Haydn Society in 1819. Harry Christophers says: "Haydn's music is always a joy to perform but with The Creation he excels himself, allowing soloists, chorus and period orchestra to revel in vivid word painting, both vocal and instrumental. Can there be a more consistently happy work than The Creation? Feel free to smile at his genius." Handel and Haydn Society is America's oldest continuously operating arts organization.

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REVIEW:

An exceptional account of the oratorio from all points of view. What is wholly exceptional is the diction of both soloists and choir; you can hear every word without referring to the text printed in the booklet.

­– BBC Music Magazine

Does music add substance to words or is music inspired by them? Songs of departure and farewell are deeply rooted in the great tradition of British choral music, nourished by ancient myths of testing journeys, wayside transformations and homecomings. The transcendent nature of music and the power of poetry to challenge and alter perceptions of reality – harnessed by English composers over many centuries – flow through a programme that invites contemplation of life and death, of love and loss, creation and eternity. In a journey covering six centuries of musical history, The Sixteen performs a cappella anthems with powerful texts by writers as varied as Edmund Spenser, Christopher Fry and W.H. Auden.

Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov (b. 1937) is an important contemporary voice in vocal music, a fact highlighted by this new release of recent, spiritual, hauntingly beautiful vocal works, sung by the Latvian Radio Choir under their director Sigvards Kļava. During his artistic career Silvestrov has explored a number of musical styles and techniques; the demise of the Soviet Union, however, enabled Silvestrov to openly compose works of religious import, inspired and influenced by his love of the Russian Orthodox Church and imbued with his own unique sound.

Christmas in Medieval England allows listeners to share the beauty, excitement, intensity and variety found in a Blue Heron concert performance. It includes plainchant, carols, and other music for Advent and Christmas from 15th c. England. It is comprised entirely of tracks recorded live at First Church in Cambridge, Congregational in December 2013. The disc should find favor with fans of Blue Heron’s first CD release (BHCD1001), which contained music of 15th c. France. “… one of the Boston music community’s indispensables.” (Boston Globe)

Studies in Rome equipped Francisco António de Almeida for high musical standing at the court of the Portuguese King, João V. Here he wrote a series of admired operas but also embarked on serenades', court spectacles of a more private nature. Il Trionfo d'Amore, a scherzo pastoral, was written to celebrate the King's name-day. Ranging from intimacy to ceremonial splendor, with several sublime arias, not least the beautiful In queste lacrime, as well as dramatic passages, it reveals de Almeida to be one of the outstanding Portuguese composers of the eighteenth century.

REVIEW:

This compilation offers a selection of the best recordings of French baroque repertoire drawn from Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra's own catalogue. The album includes the 2005 JUNO Award-winning, Grammy Award-nominated recording of an orchestral suite from Rameau's epic five-act tragedie en musique Dardanus, originally released on CBC Records. The Tafelmusik Chamber Choir and guest soloists are featured in a 2006 CBC recording of the Grand Motet Dominus regnavit by Mondonville. Two works are drawn from Tafelmusik's genre-defying, globe-trotting, multi-media concert programs: a suite from Lully's Phaeton from the 2009 recording of The Galileo Project, and a suite from Marais' Alcyone from the 2012 recording of House of Dreams. Ms. Lamon and Tafelmusik have earned high marks ... the music's greatness might not be so obvious but for Tafelmusik's fine period style... It will have listeners wondering why this music is not as well-known as works by Bach, Handel and Vivaldi.

— The New York Times

Originally released in 1998 to good notices, the 'Sinfonia Amabile' Choir and Orchestra conducted by Piotr Wajrak along with the best of the cadre of up and coming singers in Poland with Mozart's canonical Requiem in D Minor. The recording was sponsored by the Straszny Dwór Foundation whose mission is to promote Polish artists, primarily composers, conductors, instrumentalists, singers and dancers, in Poland and around the world.

Conceived as homage from the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir to the man who founded it in 1950 and remained its leader for 40 years, Knut Nystedt who passed away in December 2014, at the age of 99. Alongside the two Bach motets here featuring the choir along with Ensemble Allegria and Maria Angelika Carlsen on violin solo, among Nystedt’s repertoire with the choir, the collection also prominently features four works of Nystedt’s, including O Crux (1977) which Nystedt regarded as one of his main works. The choir provides an ineffable epitaph to Nystedt’s legacy with this release, together with Grete Pedersen, Nystedt's successor as artistic leader of the choir. Recorded in Super Audio.

All the usual virtues of Rutter's music and recordings are here. He is an extremely adept selector of texts, with The Gift of Life moving from the Book of Common Prayer to New England hymnody to Rutter's own poetry, and making it seem effortlessly of a piece. His handling of his handpicked Cambridge Singers is exemplary. The music is warm and well-shaped, with great sensitivity toward text intelligibility and an even greater level of general accessibility than usual. The album is rounded out by a group of shorter pieces, all recent, and the limpid trio of Christmas works at the end goes nicely with everything else and makes the entire album a good seasonal choice.

­– All Music Guide (James Manheim)

Bach Collegium Japan and Masaaki Suzuki’s fifth volume in their commendable survey of Bach’s vocal music with a collection of his festive secular Birthday cantatas, composed to honor a broad array of personages and including pieces presented as musical dramas where the soloists embody characters from Greek mythology, here sung by Joanne Lunn, soprano; Robin Blaze, counter-tenor; Makoto Sakurada, tenor; Dominik Wörner, bass.

Cappella Nova, the esteemed Scottish vocal ensemble that specializes in early and contemporary choral repertoire shared a long working history with the contemporary sacred choral composer Sir John Tavener and have assembled nine premiere recordings along with re-recordings of Tavener compositions in this luminous and moving tribute to the legacy of Sir John.

From a performance at the 2015 Valletta International Baroque Festival in Malta, this live performance of the engaging Cologne-based choir and orchestra Die Kölner Akademie led by Michael Alexander Willens aims to refocus attention on the little known Malta born Naples based late Baroque composer Girolamo Abos. The engaging performances of these Maltese Christmas masses with Die Kölner’s impeccable attention to detail bring new attention to this seldom recorded composer whose works are characterized by elegantly constructed forms and spirited contrapuntal thoroughbass that on this collection approach a level of revelation.