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You don’t find many discs of music for recorder and a capella voices. Veteran Danish virtuoso Michala Petri joins forces with a crack Danish choir in a fascinating selection of new works. The delight lies in hearing just how well the unadorned clarity of Petri’s tone blends with the vocals. Perhaps it’s less of a surprise when you’re reminded of the recorder’s purity – no valves, reeds or...
I well remember the first time I heard a piece of Schnittke’s, as a student at the Huddersfield Festival, the Concerto Grosso No.1. I was intrigued, surprised, found it funny and disturbing in equal measure and couldn’t wait to hear more. As time went on I became more and more disappointed – convinced that all his pieces were the same package tied up with different coloured string. The...
Is there a contemporary American choral music sound? A growing number of American composers have banded around a style based on rich harmonies, luxurious textures and a spare expressive ethos.
Led by figures like Eric Whitacre and Stephen Paulus, these composers have arisen from a nexus of skilled American choirs, largely outside the realm of academic modernism or downtown styles. They have begun...
Some of the best choral discs, in my mind, have come from British choirs exploring repertoire outside of the English choral tradition. So many of the staples of the cathedral, church and college chapel diet have been recorded so many times that it seems impossible to think of anyone who could commit something different to disc. This is not to say that they will not, Cathedral and particularly...
In 1997, the Holst Singers and Stephen Layton produced a disc that immediately became a cult classic and a best-seller. Ikon, a selection of great Russian choral music from the 19th century, dazzled with its grand, opulent beauty. Now the same forces return with Ikon II. Many of the works recorded here are by composers whose names will not be familiar—but the extraordinary quality of the music is...
If this is a representative cross-section of unaccompanied American choral music since the Second World War, it shows a genre in which beauty of sound and an atmosphere of prayerfulness are the chief characteristics. With the exception of London-born Healy Willan, whose music here often sounds like animated Herbert Howells, these composers concentrate on little else, although few do it with such...