Astrocolor Lit Up: Music For Christmas (2015)

Stile Antico's 2015 release on Harmonia Mundi, A Wondrous Mystery, is a sublime collection of Renaissance choral music for Christmas, presented in a pleasant mix of familiar German carols and a mass, with tracks interspersed for the sake of variety. This makes sense in consideration of the group's broad audience, which may know such popular hymns as Michael Praetorius' Ein Kind geborn in Bethlehem and Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, or Johannes Eccard's Übers Gebirg Maria geht and Vom Himmel hoch, yet be somewhat at a loss with the motet and Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis by Jacobus Clemens non Papa, a composer beloved by early music specialists but not exactly a household name for lay listeners. However, the a cappella performances are consistently beautiful and soothing throughout, and the quietly joyous mood of the music fits the album's title perfectly. The 12-voice choir's blend is well-balanced and transparent, and the ambience of All Hallow's Church, Gospel Oak, London gives an ideal resonance for the group's small size and close miking.

Francesco Durante was one of the great Neapolitan church composers and teachers during the first half of the eighteenth century in Naples. He chose to focus on sacred music and his Magnificat in B flat major is doubtless the best known, most beloved, most performed, and most recorded work by him among the Neapolitan Christmas compositions on volume 1.

The Kölner Akademie under its proven conductor Michael Willens now presents more atmospheric Christmas compositions by Francesco Durante, one of the greatest Neapolitan church composers of the first half of the eighteenth century. Durante continued the Neapolitan tradition of composing Christmas cantatas or motets, with a series of vocal works that he assigned to the category of the ‘Pastorale’ in order to indicate their relation to the Feast of Christmas and to the shepherds in the field.

The interplay of exercise and music has long been discussed, crossing the disciplines of biomechanics, neurology, physiology, and sport psychology. Exercise and music involves the use of music before, during, and/or after performing a physical activity. Listening to music while exercising is done to improve aspects of exercise, such as strength output, exercise duration, and motivation.