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The Mass in B minor was completed in 1749, the year before Bach’s death. Much of the work consists of music Bach composed much earlier in his life (the Kyrie and Gloriafrom one of the Lutheran Masses). The sections he added latter were among the last things he wrote before he died. It is strange for a composer as steeped in the Lutheran tradition as Bach to compose a Latin Mass setting and to...
Judging by the near-capacity audience for Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's performance on Thursday of Bach's B minor Mass, our city's choral tradition is still thriving.
The most demanding of the orchestra's Choral Masterpieces series to date, this concert benefited from a smaller band of players, some expert soloists and the prime asset of Stephen Layton. The English conductor is justly...
Even by the exalted standards of previous offerings from Stephen Layton and his gifted Trinity College undergraduates, this is an exceptionally fine release. Its rewarding contents span nearly five decades, from the exquisite anthem Salve regina that the 23-year-old Howells wrote in 1916 for Richard Terry’s Westminster Cathedral Choir, via the double pillars of those resplendent settings of the...
2013 will be Britten’s centenary, so brace yourself for an onslaught of new and reissued recordings over the next 12 months. Saint Nicolas and A Ceremony of Carols remain two of the most beguiling, approachable works Britten ever composed. Hearing the opening of this performance of A Ceremony of Carols is initially a bit of a shock – Stephen Layton uses female voices instead of the usual boys’...
A Ceremony of Carols is most frequently heard sung by boy trebles – there is also an SATB arrangement by Julius Harrison, which, for all Harrison’s skill doesn’t really work in my opinion. However, in his excellent booklet note Mervyn Cooke points out that the piece, which Britten largely composed while on his sea voyage back from the USA to Britain in 1942, was conceived for female voices....
As the Britten centenary looms into view, it is good to be able to offer an enthusiastic welcome to this sparkling disc of two of his 1940s 'classic' scores. A Ceremony of Carols (recorded in 2007, early in Stephen Layton's directorship at Trinity College) is sung here by the evenly blended upper voices of his chapel choir. Layton's flowing speeds underline the dramatic sequence of the carols (...