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'The Holst Singers have done an excellent job … They have a beautiful, cool sound in the best British tradition, and the deep bass voices bring forth some glorious noises … This disc is hugely welcome … fascinating and, ultimately, uplifting'
Performance *****Sounds *****
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...