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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...
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...
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...
With this ideal coupling, Stephen Layton and his choral forces are getting in early with Christmas and Britten centenary celebrations. A Ceremony of Carols is so associated with boys' voices, it comes as a shock to learn that it was conceived with women's voices in mind, even though Layton's soprano and mezzos affect a purity that sounds "boyish". Their intonation in the piquant harmonies of...
Britten's joyous cycle of nine carols is so closely associated with boys' voices that it comes as a surprise to learn that he conceived it for female choir - and very attractive it sounds in this version with the women's voices of Trinity College Choir, whose recessional "Alleluia" is as vividly captured as the contributions of harpist Sally Pryce. The Saint Nicolas cantata, with the City of...
*****
Although we tend to associate Britten's A Ceremony of Carols with the timbre of boy trebles, it was originally conceived for women's voices, and the mix of choirs on this recording makes for a performance that has lustre and potent atmosphere, heightened by the piquancy of Sally Pryce's harp playing. The coupling is another Christmas favourite, the cantata "Saint Nicolas", in which Stephen...