Here, the polyphonic segments of the selected Magnificat compositions are based not on monophonic models but on pre-existent compositions. Accordingly, here we have to do with parody works in which a procedure widespread in Masses is applied to the Magnificat. Forty of Lasso’s 101 Magnificat compositions are to be assigned to this type. These imitation Magnificats in no way involve a simple re-textualization of pre-existent works. At the beginning Lasso mostly rather precisely draws on his particular model, but then he quickly departs from it. In the Magnificat on Rore’s Da le belle contrade the beginning corresponds to the original, but soon thereafter it departs from it the textual passage in Deo salutari« is completely freely set. This procedure thus is somewhat similar to collage technique: the possibilities range from the use of whole passages to the re-layering of blocks, paraphrasing, quotations of individual voices, free continuation, and so on. The result may safely be termed a new creation on the basis of a pre-existent work. The sound developed by the Singphoniker may be described as cathedral and no less directly immediate. The great fullness of sound displayed by this six-man vocal ensemble never fails to amaze the listener« (FonoForum 2/13).

Judith Clurman conducts her acclaimed chorus, Essential Voices USA, in Holiday Harmonies: Sounds of Christmas, the ensemble’s third recording for Sono Luminus. This holiday disc includes premiere recordings of new vibrant arrangements of seasonal favorites and new works that were written for the disc by some of America’s finest composers. Mezzo Soprano Jamie Barton, Soprano Maureen McKay, Pianist Tedd Firth, and Harpist Stacey Shames are featured performers. Traditional repertoire includes: “Angels We Have Heard on High” (arr. David Chase), “O Holy Night” (arr. Ryan Nowlin), “Silent Night” (arr. Tedd Firth and Judith Clurman), “The Virgin’s Slumber Song” (Max Reger), and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” (adaptation Judith Clurman). New works include: “Whispered and Revealed” (Nico Muhly), “Love Came Down” (Jennifer Higdon) and “Merry Christmas Wishing Well” (Gene and Lorraine Gilroy, arr. Michael Gilbertson).

Initially regarded as a master composer of art songs, Jake Heggie has since become known as perhaps America’s leading contemporary composer of internationally acclaimed operas. Winning examples of both genres appear on this release: the world premiere recording of a short, one-act opera, The Radio Hour – as well as four shorter vocal pieces. The Radio Hour – the world’s first-ever “choral opera” – is a compact work for silent actress, with running narrative and commentary from a choir. The program is rounded out with four mostly art song-based works in varied arrangements, several with choral elements, sung by the vaunted John Alexander Singers. Susan Graham, one of America’s most beloved mezzo-sopranos, is heard in three of the shorter pieces; Pacific Symphony members provide the instrumentals. “A masterpiece of clarity and intensity, with a score that is at once thematically compact and richly inventive.” San Francisco Chronicle (review of Jake Heggie’s opera “Moby Dick”)

Although highly productive and respected in his lifetime as a Lied composer, Robert Franz (1815–92) has since become a peripheral figure in music history. As they began to explore the songs of Franz, Georges Starobinski and baritone Christian Immler were moved by their findings to devise a program including twenty-three of the composer’s often quite brief songs. Using the poet Heinrich Heine as their guiding star, they present these – all Heine settings but from different opus groups – in the form of two ‘imagined’ song cycles, framed by further settings of Heine poems by Schumann and Liszt.

Already well known to opera audiences worldwide, Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling is also a dedicated and acclaimed recitalist, as noted by reactions in the Sunday Times and Gramophone, among other publications, to her two previous BIS releases with pianist Paul Rivinius that feature songs by Richard Strauss and Franz Schubert. This new, third BIS disc of songs by Edvard Grieg, Jean Sibelius and Wilhelm Stenhammar takes its title from Stenhammar’s I skogen (In the forest), with many of the selected songs either played out in or depicting natural settings, in a manner familiar to Nordic composers.

After a long break, cpo continues its important, yeoman’s Heinrich Schütz edition – repeatedly hailed as a benchmark series – with the Weser-Renaissance Bremen under Manfred Cordes. This latest release has the ensemble interpreting Schütz’s Symphoniae Sacrae I, the oldest printed collection of his works. To capture the essence of these works involving obbligato early baroque instruments that also qualify very much as solo music, the technical bases must be fully and truly exhausted by the composer and the interpreters. “… Interpretive vibrancy, presence…and joy in sound…” (FonoForum)

Arnold Schönberg founded the Society for Musical Private Performances in November 1918 “to give Arnold Schoenberg the opportunity personally to carry out his intention of providing artists and art lovers with a veritable and precise knowledge of Modern Music”, as Alban Berg described in a leaflet in 1919. Chamber music, solo pieces and songs saw performance, and to a great extent, properly arranged for the available means, original large-scale orchestral works of topical and artistic high-quality were also produced. In the autumn of 1921, Schönberg embarked on an arrangement of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, which, however, he broke off in the middle of the first movement. The continuation was to be taken over by Webern, but this did not happen, evidently as a consequence of the end of the society. It was only in 1982/83 that the German composer, conductor and musicologist Rainer Riehn (b. 1941) was prepared to continue what had been begun.

After the successful album release “Slavonic Souls” (Capriccio C5039) the Vienna State Opera Singer Zoryana Kushpler, accompanied on the piano by her partner and twin sister Olena, offer a rich recital of famous Spanish songs by the likes of Granados, de Falla, Mompou, Rodrigo and Montsalvage, including some choice rarities by these composers. Born in Lvov, Ukraine, Ms. Kushpler made her debut at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2007 as Adelaide in Richard Strauss’s Arabella. She has also been heard there in the operas of Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Puccini, Offenbach and Johann Strauss.

Praised for her “impeccably pure and iridescent voice” (Financial Times), soprano Adrianne Pieczonka is primarily known for her vocally opulent and interpretively intense Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner opera performances– though her vocal and stylistic versatility enables her to be at home in dramatic operatic roles by Verdi, Puccini and others. Her first Delos release is constituted of a varied program of Richard Strauss and Wagner songs. Strauss created 158 lieder for soprano voice in total; many of the dozen heard here are among his true masterpieces. The opera specialist Wagner, on the other hand, wrote far fewer songs than Strauss. Best-known among them are the five ecstatically romantic Wesendonck-Lieder, a masterpiece among Lieder cycles. Accompanying Ms. Pieczonka is Brian Zeger, a pianist whose technical finesse and interpretive sensitivity mark him as one of the great collaborators of our time.