Schnittke – Choir Concerto
Minnesang & Voice of Nature

Holst Singers
Stephen Layton

BBC Music Magazine - Best CD's of 2002

BBC Music Magazine
David Nice
December 2002

No longer need Alfred Schnittke's daunting and often overwhelming Choir Concerto be seen purely as the provenance of those supernaturally adept Russian choirs. In both the most uplifting of block harmonies and the most anguished of laments, Layton and the Holst Singers impress me even more than the assured yet still English cathedral-choir-like Corydon Singers' award-winning Rachmaninov. For Voices of Nature, shimmering vibraphone melts in to perfectly intoned women's voices after the velvet, bass-bolstered resonance of the Concert's final bars, and the 52-part textures of Minnesang, amore acquired taste, are effortlessly sculpted.

Music Week
14 Jan 2002

Schnittke: Choir Concerto; Minnesang; Voices of Nature. Holst Singers/Layton (Hyperion CDA67297). Stephen Layon's abilities as a choral trainer and conductor have been recognised with a Gramophone Award and a series of prestigeous appointments, including director of the Netherlands Radio Choir. In his latest Hyperion release, h draws a sublime performance od Schnittke's Choir Concerto from the Holst Singers. The work's rich sonorities and spiritual intensity register vividly here. Likewise, Layton shapes an outstanding interpretation of the difficult yet hauntingly beautiful Minnesang. Marketed as Hyperion's disc of the month.

The Times
Geoff Brown
15 Jan 2002

None of the music ... gets the spine tingling as much as the Schnittke choral music sung by the Holst Singers, conducted by Stephen Layton, on Hyperion CDA 67297. Minnesang, from 1981, features 52 voices surging ecstatically through medieval German love songs. In the 40-minute Concerto for Mixed Chorus, from the mid 1980s, Schnittke adopts the hieratic manner of the Russian Orthodox church: music great for contemplation, and a terrific showcase for the choir’s stamina.

The Guardian
Andrew Clements
15 Feb 2002

From its very opening the Choir Concerto proclaims its affiliations to the Russian choral tradition. Completed in 1985, it is one of the most imposing of all Schnittke's later works - 40 minutes long, and setting passages from an Armenian book of lamentation - using a language that makes constant reference to the melodic shapes and diatonic harmony of the Orthodox liturgy. This superbly performed collection of Schnittke's a cappella music also includes the 1981 Minnesang, which takes texts by the medieval German minnesingers and virtually atomises them in the densely woven textures created by 52 solo voices. Strictly speaking, Voices of Nature is not unaccompanied, as a solo vibraphone underpins the textless vocalise of the 10 females voices, even though its sound is totally embedded in the rapturous texture.

The Evening Standard
Rick Jones
8 Feb 2002

Although technically the Holst Singers are amateurs, it would be wrong to think they were in any way second rate. Indeed, they sing Schnittke’s "Choir Concerto" better than did the professional BBC Singers in last year’s Schnittke festival at the Barbican.

The professionals are adept at getting by on fewer rehearsals. The Holst Singers work at a piece until they have perfected it, all for the price of room hire. The "Choir Concerto", one of the toughest pieces in the a cappella repertoire, sounds extremely well polished. The singers’ pitch holds, their Russian diction is plausible and the fortissimo they achieve rattles the window panes. The second basses have fabulous low notes. The Orthodox church would give much for such sepulchural tone.

Schnitte’s “Minnesang”, which requires 52 separate parts, pours from the speakers in impassioned waves, with soloists surfing the harmony and everyone aiming towards the strange chance-music climax. The short work “Voices of Nature” is a wordless incantation for womens’ voices accompanied by a magical vibraphone which resounds like a suburban door-chime through the choral weft. Bing-bong. Doors are opening for the Holst Singers.

Gramophone
Ivan Moody

A superb and revealing performance of one of Schnittke’s most approachable works

The rather anodyne name Concerto for Mixed Chorus, intended to convey a conscious link to similarly named works by Bortnyansky and other composers, actually conceals a work with tremendous depths of faith and feeling, and a masterpiece of choral writing building firmly on the Russian sacred tradition. The text comes from deeply penitential religious poetry by Grigor Narekatsi, a 10th-century Armenian monk, to which Schnittke responded with an immediacy that makes this a colourful and considerably more approachable work than the later Penitential Psalms.

The Holst Singers bring to the music’s often stunningly rich textures not only their previous experience with Russian music, but also something of the English choral tradition, which makes those not infrequent moments that suggest the choral writing of, say, Howells or Bax, strike one the more forcefully. In this they make a different case for the work from the Danish and Russian choirs recorded on Chandos; the music can stand many different approaches, and this is not only as convincing as any other I have heard, but allows details of the scoring to come through in a unique way. The technical skill of the Holst Singers is truly impressive; the demands made on them by Schnittke's long-breathed lines are far from small, and there is a complete sense of security and enjoyment from the highest floating soprano to the lowest bass rumblings.

Neither Voices of Nature nor Minnesang aspire to the heights of the Concerto, but they shed interesting light on Schnittke's stylistic changes. The former is really a tiny tone poem, originally written for a film, pretty but not much more; the latter is a substantial setting of Minnesinger texts for 52 voices. It is also a mood picture, as the composer himself said, but at 19 minutes it is a long one, and the material doesn't really sustain interest for that long. It is the Concerto that provides the real interest in this programme, and with a performance of this extraordinary quality it should earn many new admirers.

BBC Music Magazine
Paul Cutts
February 2002

The death of Alfred Schnittke in 1998 robbed the world of one of its most distinctive symphonists. But as this fine disc of his lesser-known choral works makes clear, it also deprived Russia of a composer deeply aware of his country's vocal traditions, and a writer able to reflect that tradition through a uniquely personal prism.

By far the most powerful expression of that ability is the mighty Choir Concerto. Written in the mid 1980s it is the summation of Schnittke's style of 'new simplicity'. At 40 minutes, the Concerto is a challenging work for any chorus, but what so impresses both in the music and the performance here is its deceptive, organic simplicity. There's a wonderfully controlled ebb and flow to the phrasing and dynamics that belies the work's complexities. Although based on regular harmony and the melodic shape of Russian orthodox music, Schnittke's trademark writing is subtly sewn throughout the vast canvas.

After the weight of the Choir Concerto, Voices of Nature - for wordless female voices and vibraphone - comes as a perfect counterfoil. If the Concerto reflects man's striving after God, then this eerie miniature is more like the angels reaching down to the natural world. It has an ethereal, astronomic beauty in which the forces mingle so beautifully it's almost impossible at times to distinguish where the voices end and the vibraphone begins. Five minutes of pure musical wizardry.
The fecundity of Schnittke's invention is embodied in the Minnesang, based on medieval German poetry and scored for 52 voices. Rather than opt for a straightforward setting of the texts, Schnittke piles up layer upon layer of words and vocal lines. The intricacies are manifold but the cumulative effect is astonishingly lucid.

This is a disc that reaffirms Schnittke as one of the most significant composers of the last century and the Holst Singers as a leading chorus on the international stage.

Rough Guides
March 2002

If in some of his choral music Schnittke sounds a little ‘unlike himself’, this disc reveals a less theatrical, more introspective side to his character. Perhaps it’s that the influences sit contentedly together – Rachmaninov is here, as is Poulenc at times, and the world of Pärt and Tavener isn’t too distant – yet Schnittke’s preoccupation with unusual choral textures makes the works very distinctive. The rapt Voices of Nature employs a 10-part female chorus and vibraphone, floating tightly clustered (and rather Ligeti-like) harmonies that build enticingly then drift apart. Minnesang traverses similar territory, but this time in no less than 52 parts, contrasting dense blocky chords with intricate solo writing and a range of virtuosic vocal effects. The Choir Concerto uses simpler musical language, but its impassioned setting of a tenth-century Armenian prayer works well in this program. The performances, though missing that last ounce of Russian mystique, are excellent – everything is vibrantly and intelligently sung as well as transparently recorded – making this a highly satisfying and illuminating issue.

Classical Music
Aidan Twomey
Feb 2002

Those who know Schnittke as a master of the grotesque, the trashy or the avant garde would be as surprised to hear this CD as his supporters in the Soviet era were when this magnificent concerto for choir first appeared in 1981. But Russian artists, even the non-devout, have always drawn inspiration from the Orthodox tradition, and few who know Tchaikovsky’s Liturgy of St John Chrysostom or Chekhov’s story The Student would deny that they have reached the highest peaks of inspiration under its spell. Schnittke, massively popular in his own country, seemed to address a deep psychological need in the Russian people, one that could not be ordinarily articulated or resolved in Soviet times. That Schnittke’s investigation of the Russian mindset should find a choral outlet in the Orthodox tradition should, with the wisdom of hindsight, be no surprise.
Schnittke took liberties that less talented composers would not have been forgiven (many of his orchestral works contain electric guitars mainly, I contend, because they were frowned upon). These include the religious text of this Concerto For Mixed Chorus, drawn from the writings of a tenth century Armenian monk Grigor Narekatsi. They are stunningly beautiful, even in translation, a voice of devotion from one of the world’s oldest Christian communities. Schnittke’s modal writing is simple, extremely expressive and decisively Russian. Some have expressed reservations as to the quality of this concerto, mostly concerning its unchanging texture, but few fail to respond to its immense power, and I have no doubt in calling it a masterpiece. Part and Taverner sound like little boys beside a work that explores real spiritual depths.

The Holst Singers, a non-professional choir based in London, have done an excellent job. They do not have the authority of the Svetlanov (who gave the first performance) version on Chandos, but they sing wonderfully. They have a beautiful, cool sound in the best British tradition, and the deep bass voices bring forth some glorious noises. I suspect that the Russian language pronunciation is not perfect, but such are the dense textures of the Concerto this is not a hindrance that will concern most listeners.

The fillers do not reach such heights. Voices of Nature is one of those slight works that Schnittke produced occasionally. For vibraphone and wordless chorus, it doesn’t seem to do very much, and it doesn’t really stick in the memory, but it sounds nice.

Minnesang is a much more earthly and complex work exploring the legacy of the medieval German Minnesangers, aristocratic predecessors to the Meistersingers. It sets a medieval German text concerning love, although Schnittke treats the words completely phonetically, claiming the meaning to be unimportant. It is a skilful work, building interesting textures in crescendos, although it never feels particularly important.

This disc is hugely welcome. The sound of a composer under the yoke of communism trying to explore matters of the spirit whilst forbidden to make expressly devotional music is fascinating and, ultimately, uplifting.

Amazon.co.uk
Harriet Smith
Feb 2002

If the idea of an unaccompanied choral work, sung in Russian, lasting more than 40 minutes sounds like hard work, don’t be too quick to dismiss it. Schnittke’s Choir Concerto (1984-85) has the unmistakable whiff of greatness about it and is unquestionably one of his most compelling achievements. It finds him in ecstatic mode, setting eloquent prayers by a 10th-century Armenian poet. The result is mellifluous, compelling and quite overwhelming. Technically and musically it’s a real challenge to any choir, let alone an amateur one such as the Holst Singers. All credit, then, to conductor Stephen Layton for turning fine individual singers into a group of the first rank. Two other works bulk out the disc: Voices of Nature is a short, wordless piece for ten female voices with the ghostly addition of a vibraphone. It’s the earliest composition here (1972) and the very embodiment of the simplicity that Schnittke had newly embraced. Minnesang is a clear precursor of the Choir Concerto, both technically and musically, with the 52 voices honed with intense precision to powerful effect. But it's for the Concerto that this disc is indispensable. Rather like the Górecki Three phenomenon a few years back, this has the potential to become a cult work, and this performance more than does it justice.

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