On this disc, the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge performs Mozart’s ‘Coronation Mass’ alongside four distinguished soloists and the period instrument ensemble St John’s Sinfonia. Notably, soprano Susan Gritton has amassed a vast discography that has earned her two Grammy nominations and includes, for Chandos, recordings of works by Haydn, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Vaughan Williams. The ‘Coronation’ Mass achieved great renown after its performance at the Imperial Coronation in Prague, which took place nine months after Mozart’s death. The opulence of the Gloria, in particular, is unmistakable, and the alternations between soloists and choir add drama to the text, which Mozart scored with operatic clarity. Here the choir forcefully praises and glorifies, while the soloists more intimately bless and worship. Also on this disc is Susan Gritton’s first-ever recorded performance of Mozart’s dramatic solo cantata Exsultate jubilate, and a motet for the Feast of Corpus Christi, Ave verum corpus.

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Walter Braunfels regarded himself as a late-romantic, traditional composer in succession to Berlioz, Wagner and Bruckner. During the period of the Thrid Reich, he was dismissed from his positions as a "half Jew" and his works were banned from performance. After the Second World War, representatives of the musical avant-garde found Braunfel's style no longer contemporary, which is why he gradually became forgotten. His entire oeuvre has been enjoying a wonderful Renaissance since the 1990's, however, and is now being enthusiastically rediscovered by the international musical world.

Baritone Andre Schuen and pianist Daniel Heide were brought together through serendipity. They both took part in the 2008 Salzburg Mozarteum Summer Academy and performed during the prizewinners’ recital When Daniel heard Andre’s voice for the first time, he immediately knew he wanted to collaborate with the spectacular musician. This is the duo’s debut release, and the purpose is to present the entire scope of their repertoire. Andre Schuen has been exploring different facets of his voice. “The three personalities we encounter on this CD represent three different generations. In Robert Schumann we meet the enraptured youthful lover; in Frank Martin we meet a man caught in the midst of life but pushed to the brink of despair by fear of death. And Hugo Wolf draws our gaze to Mignon’s father, the old harpist, full of melancholy, approaching the end of his life.”

Natus es: A Christmas Celebration

One of Parry's finest works, magnificently performed, and the best of the two available recordings of "The Sons of Light".

This was the first recording of "The Sons of Light". When I reviewed the second recording, by David Lloyd-Jones on Naxos, I found the Lyrita preferable, with more presence to the recording, more vital conducting and better choral diction. At that time there still seemed to be no prospect of the many Lyrita treasures ever seeing the light of day again. Now things are changing and this is the recording to get.

I referred in my review to the "coursing energy and phenomenal range of colour" of the work. It is, in its way, one of Vaughan Williams’s most impressive. You would certainly never imagine it was written to be sung by children – 1,150 of them at the first performance in 1951, with the accompaniment of the LPO under Boult. What worries me is that, every time I come to it, I find I don’t remember it. It’s not just that the themes don’t stay in my mind. As the work plays I don’t get any sense of recognition – "Ah, I remember that bit now". I hear it as a work I’ve never heard before. This is not a problem I have with Vaughan Williams generally.

Though I also had the LP containing "The Mystic Trumpeter" I never really listened to it often enough to say whether it sticks in my mind or not. I should think it unlikely. I find the same problem here as with Vaughan Williams’s "Willow-Wood", which was also on the Naxos/Lloyd-Jones disc. The composer has very skilfully set the poem line by line, with meaningful upward swoops for important words, pregnant key-changes and so on. He’s produced a nice wall-paper backing to a poem that is far more exciting when it’s simply read. But composition is about creation. It is a constructive process. If you start with an exhilarating poem and finish with a piece of music with about as much tension as a wet lettuce, is this to be defined as composition or decomposition? A work for Holst completists only. The performance is good enough, though Armstrong’s voice sometimes billows when it should soar. Holst seems to have a whopping Wagnerian soprano voice in mind and Armstrong, for all her virtues, was not exactly that. There is also a touch of opaqueness to some of her notes on the CD, though not on the LP.

The Parry is a far more memorable work. The composer had the good sense to choose a poem which provides a refrain. He does not repeat the same music every time but provides a new variation of it. The result is a sort of variation rondo form, combining continuous development with structural unity. Parry is at his finest and most eloquent throughout, from the lilting opening to the dancing energy of the later stanzas. There is a satisfying build-up which dies away to a touching close. There is also a lovely solo stanza, beautifully sung by Teresa Cahill. John Quinn noted in his review that her word underlay at the end of this stanza was at variance with the new edition he was using and wondered if the edition had been revised. I doubt it; I have a copy of the original edition and the textual underlay is different from what is sung there, too. Quite simply, the music as written calls unrealistically for a third lung, so I imagine Cahill herself changed the underlay in order to take a breath in the middle. Composers who aren’t singers miscalculate in this way more often than you’d expect – even Verdi did sometimes. Read John’s review, by the way; he has had the good fortune to sing in a rare performance of the work and his enthusiasm comes from within. But did the soprano at that performance cope with that long phrase in a single breath?

If Parry is at his best, so is Willcocks. It’s a thrilling performance from a great choral conductor. This is the only recording of the piece so far, but now it’s available again we hardly need another. Just for the record, I have always thought Cahill a little insecure in her opening phrase, but thereafter she is splendid. She has a lovely disc of R. Strauss and Rachmaninov to her credit and, unlike Sheila Armstrong in "The Mystic Trumpeter", her voice doesn’t billow, it soars.

Maybe in 1912 the Parry seemed old-fashioned. In 2007 it just seems timeless.

Outstanding recordings, as always with Lyrita, and notes by Ursula Vaughan Williams, Bernard Benoliel and Imogen Holst.

-- Christopher Howell, MusicWeb International

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Lanner & Schubert: Viennese Miniatures

The vocal music on Rene Eespere's CD de spe is based on the Latin texts by Seneca, Ovidius, Martialis, Codex Vossianus and Codex Bernensis and on the dramatic-symbolic poem Invocatio by Anne Lill inspired by Franz Kafka's parable Before the Law. This CD is filled with Epigrams, musically expressed in a nuance-rich language of impressionistic, operatic and sacred music elements. The original versions of Epigrams were written for the Opera in the Town Hall concert series and have been premiering within the ancient walls of the Tallinn Town Hall since 2001. Epigrams are dedicated to Francois Soulet, Elena Voznessenskaya and Sauli Tiilikainen whose interpretation of them is recorded on this album.

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: La Morra.

Gayane, Masquerade and the Violin Concerto (here featuring a bravura performance by Leonid Kogan) need no introduction. Noteworthy too is the sterling delivery of the young pianist Antonín Jemelík in the recording of the Piano Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

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This new release is a bouquet of traditional hymns taken from 18th and 19th century hymnals. These beloved works have been passed down from generation to generation, and remain some of the most sung hymns in churches across the globe. The Mellstock Band & Choir perform music from the Hardy family and Puddletown Church manuscripts using authentic instruments as they would have been performed by a village band in Hardy’s Wessex. Maddy Prior and The Carnival Band were formed in 1984 for a BBC Radio 2 broadcast of Christmas carols. The broadcast became an album, which was enthusiastically received by the public. Each member of the ensemble enjoys their own career, but the group is always happy to come together for a project like this, with opportunities to combine styles and talents.

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

Norway is a gorgeous country, and it’s no surprise that Delius found much of his inspiration there. The pieces on this intelligently planned program run from 1889-1917, and are programmed in roughly chronological order. They range from the charming orchestration of good friend Edvard Grieg’s Norwegian Bridal Procession to Delius’ first major works for orchestra (Paa Vidderne) and for the theatre (the incidental music to Folkeraadet), taking in a couple of orchestral songs along the way.

Paa Vidderne (On the Mountains) is a tone poem obviously of the Wagner/Liszt school, with plenty of hefty brass scoring and way too many cymbal crashes. It does not sound particularly Delian, but curiously the earlier Sleigh Ride’s calm central section clearly foreshadows the composer to come. Few listeners are probably aware that On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring is based on a Norwegian theme, but there it is, while Eventyr, which concludes the program, is a masterpiece of mood and turbulent atmosphere, sort of Delius’ answer to Sibelius’ En Saga.

This is one of those programs in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The selections are nicely varied. Ann-Helen Moen sings the two songs quite beautifully, and Andrew Davis, who recorded some very nice Delius for Teldec back in the day, knows his way around the music. It’s also good to hear non-British orchestras taking on this repertoire. Certainly the Bergen Philharmonic sounds just fine, although curiously, in Eventyr, the second of the two shouts (literally: the plays have to shout) is quite untidy. Not important, though, especially with fine sonics and a very generous nearly eighty minutes of playing time. A very enjoyable and interesting disc.

- ClassicsToday

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Composing over 150 works for piano and voice over a period of 44 years, the songs of Francis Poulenc remain consistently popular to concert audiences the world over. Varying in their individual style and character in a way that defies generalization, Poulenc set music to a wide range of different French poetry - both ancient and modern, and from the serious to the surreal. This is the fourth release in our series that will encompass the complete songs of Francis Poulenc, performed by some of the greatest singers of the day and accompanied by the exceptional Malcolm Martineau.

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...Gervasoni not only writes notes, he writes about the distance that can be found between and around them, the very distance that Emily Dickinson refers to in her poems. That distance contains the hidden meaning of Philip Levine's poetry, the upheaval and the plenitude of man that Francis Ponge conjures up out of staring eyes, here transmuted into listening tension. - Ph. Albera

This reissue is a very useful reminder that there is much more to the world of early seventeenth century Florence than just the great work of Monteverdi, who composed Orfeo as a court opera in 1607. Sung drama was a special development in Florence, and music lovers looked for the right combination between poetry and music. The role of the camerate would have considerable significance in that development, which would lead, in full development, to opera as we know it.

There are special problems of setting words to music which remain potent for composers of all times. Is the priority music or text? In a preface of 1605, Monteverdi contrasted prima prattica with seconda prattica. In the former, the word must subordinate itself to the music, with emotional compass limited by musical values. In the latter, things are the other way about (a bit of a simplification, but sound enough), even if the expressiveness of the text means an unevenness in balance and harmony. Monteverdi’s Orfeo exemplifies seconda prattica. So too, in its own way, does Belli’s L’Orfeo Dolente, of 1616, the main piece on this recording, supplemented by extracts from contemporary works.

Belli’s work is not an opera in the sense that Monteverdi’s Orfeo is. Rather, it has the character of incidental music to Tasso’s play, Arminta, a set of numbers to draw out and heighten the key moments of the drama. The text of these verses is not by Tasso, but by Gabriello Chiabrera. Belli is today not well-known, but he was clearly a composer of distinctive voice; he worked at the Florentine Basilica of San Lorenzo from 1610 until 1613.

But this music is not just a piece of archaeological interest; it stands on its own very well in performances as varied, as musical and attractive as those on this disc. Singers are uniformly fine, both individually and in ensemble, with good diction and security of tone. Performances are informed, both musically and historically, as one would expect from such fine musicians.

– MusicWeb International (MusicWeb International)

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Ensemble: L'Arpeggiata. Conductor: Christina Pluhar. Soloists: Johannette Zomer, Pino De Vittorio, Hans Jörg Mammel.

Complete Track List:

1 Avrilla mia (2'58)
2 O fronte serena (2'35)
3 Occhi soli d'amore (3'28)
4 Sinfonia 9 (5'29)
5 Ite sospiri miei (1'56)
6 Sonino, scherzino (1'27)
7 Io parto (2'37)
8 O cor sempre dolente (2'10)
9 L'Arpeggiata (2'42)
10 Galliarda prima (2'02)
11 Passacaglia (1'26)
12 Alma mia, dove t'en vai (1'59)
13 Sinfonia 8 (1'46)
14 Lacrime estreme (1'14)
15 Sinfonia 15 (2'29)
16 Tu che pallido (3'52)
17 Senso fallace (1'40)
18 Che fai tu (2'47)
19 Sinfonia 18 (6'27)
20 Ai conviti, alle nozze (1'42)
21 Tarantella di Sannicandro (3'13)
22 Figlio dormi (7'13)

The first Recording of the complete songs by Dallapiccola, one of the most influential composers of 20th century Italy. His political engagement and his experiments with the 12-tone technique established him firmly in the European Avant-Garde. The main work on this double CD are the transcriptions he made of 17th and 18th century Italian songs, by Monteverdi, Caldara, Carissimi, Caccini, Durante, Stradella, Legrenzi and others. He wrote brilliantly dry and essential, making intelligent use of counterpoint and canon, with exquisite taste for vocal timbres and polyrhythm. In that sense they are far more "20th century" than similar transcriptions by other composers (Respighi, Busoni a.o.) who romanticized the original early works. Also included are the two original song cycles by Dallapiccola: Rencesvals and Quattro Liriche di Antonio Machado, fascinating testimony of his unique style, both severe and warmly emotional. Beautifully performed by 4 excellent Italian singers who already recorded successfully the songs by Jolivet and Ravel. Scholarly written liner notes by the pianist, Filippo Farinelli.

Hungarian composer and virtuoso Franz Liszt gained renown across Europe in the early 19th century for his unmatched piano skills. By 1940 he was considered by many critics to be the greatest pianist of all time. Liszt was also a diverse composer, and made many contributions to the musical world, most notably the invention of the symphonic poem. He was also one of the most significant representatives of the New German School. The lieder of Franz Liszt are some of his most beloved works. On this recording, American tenor Daniel Weeks performs these compositions with magnificent insight. Pianist Naomi Oliphant beautifully accompanies.