Reviews
Review Search
It is two years since Hyperion introduced the music of Morten Lauridsen to a wider audience and earned a Grammy nomination for its trouble. That first volume of the West Coast American composer's religious work is complemented here by an anthology chiefly of his secular choral writing, though even here there is still a whiff of spirituality.
Mid-Winter Songs from 1983 sets five poems by Robert...
'Stephen Layton's splendiferous disc - the second of Lauridsen's music by these performers - should be on the shelf of each and every choral-music aficionado'
The Northwest-born composer Morten Lauridsen, renowned for his choral music, is the subject of this sumptuous CD by the English vocal ensemble Polyphony, under the direction of Stephen Layton. Their glorious sound and subtle interpretations do complete justice to Lauridsen's scores, including the "Mid-Winter Songs," "Les chansons des roses" and the brand-new, rapturous "Nocturnes," of which this...
The first two days of January are a drab time in Scotland, after the junketing of Hogmanay. So there's a tradition of spicing things up with performances of Messiah. For some reason, this oratorio has attached itself to this period, attracting many punters who, one suspects, never otherwise see the inside of a concert hall. At least, the person next to me, who beat time, stamped her feet and sang...
'This second, secular anthology is, if anything finer than its predecessor, elevated by the heavenly work of all concerned with its making, and the compelling eloquence of Lauridsen's sublime music....Polyphony’s love for words and music register with unwavering conviction... Stephen Layton's grasp of the polished idiom and his innate musicianship crown this essential release, which under his...
'I hold these truths to be self-evident: 1) Rainer Maria Rilke was a genius. 2) Morten Lauridsen is a genius. 3) Lauridsen’s a cappella setting of Rilke’s Contre Qui, Rose is one of the most singularly beautiful pieces of vocal music in the history of Western Civilization. 4) Polyphony’s new Hyperion recording of Contre Qui, Rose is a Record To Die For. The rest of the disc isn’t too shabby,...