" contains three classic musique concrète compositions from Michel Chion. All were produced at the GRM in Paris (the acousmatic headquarters of the world). The itself is an electronic take on the traditional form. is a ‘technical study’ which takes an original waltz theme and fragments it. is considered a ‘monodrama’ — that is, a drama centering around one ‘character.’ In this case what we hear are the detached reactions of this ‘character’ to a nightmare. It’s French, it’s acousmatic… what more could you ask for?"
Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra present Brahms’ greatest choral work, the 'German' Requiem, featuring soprano Sally Matthews and baritone Christopher Maltman. Gergiev’s first Brahms release on LSO Live, Symphonies Nos 1 & 2, Tragic Overture & Haydn Variations was awarded 5/5 by BBC Music Magazine.
Johannes Brahms drew texts from various Biblical sources for his Deutsches Requiem. As we hear in his choral music, he had a passion for polyphony and was inspired by models from the great Lutheran tradition of the late Renaissance and the Baroque. Ricercar and Vox Luminis have explored this early repertoire with the same passion for many years now, although with no less admiration for Brahms's masterpiece. It is no surprise that some of the texts that Brahms chose had already been set by his illustrious predecessors; it simply remained for us to trace a path through these earlier scores, so many meditations on death, and to assemble a very different Deutsches Requiem: one animated by the emotions of the Lutheran Baroque.
A two-CD set devoted to the Lutheran liturgical repertory from Martin Luther himself to Heinrich Schütz. The first disc comprises compositions specific to the Lutheran liturgy: Deutsche Messe, Deutsches Magnificat, Deutsche Passion (the first German polyphonic Passion, by Joachim von Burck) and even a reconstruction of a Deutsches Requiem drawn from polyphonic works that set the same texts as those Brahms was later to use for his Deutsches Requiem.
Brahms’s Missa canonica is something of a rarity: composed around 1856, the work lay unperformed until 1983 despite being regarded highly enough by its composer for him to have re-used some of its material in the popular motet Warum ist das Licht gegeben?. The absence of both Gloria and Credo settings (these texts being too long to be easily suited to the form of a canon) probably explains the neglect, yet the four movements of this work show all the hallmarks of Brahms’s compositional mastery and deft handling of choral effect that are well known from his many motets, six of which, including the sublime Op 30 Geistliches Lied, are also recorded here.
The equally majestic follow-up to one of the most successful box sets in recent memory: After KARAJAN 1960s here comes KARAJAN 1970s. Between 1970 and 1979, Herbert von Karajan recorded the incredible amount of 82 CDs worth of orchestral and choral music for DG This was the period that saw Karajan delve deeply into important repertoire that he never really tackled before or after – from Vivaldi to Mahler, to Berg, Schoenberg and Webern as well as Orff. Not to forget Christmas Concertos, National Anthems, and Prussian Marches.
…The present recording proposes his Mass N°2 in E minor in its 1882 revised form, as well as the Motets. Marcus Creed, who has also recorded extraordinary versions of Brahms’ choral works, once again delights us. The perfect tonal balance the Vokalensemble of Stuttgart radiates is a marvel at every moment. Bruckner’s sacred music thereby seems eternal. Here is a Super Audio CD of rare musical pertinence: a summit.
Few record labels from the dawn of the LP era are recalled with more admiration and affection than Westminster Records – its first records from 1950 established Westminster as a pioneering source, exploring new and exciting corners of repertoire.
The complete cantata recordings of a Bach conductor who defined performance standards of these works in his day, newly remastered and compiled together for the first time on CD. In the generation of Bach interpreters before Karl Richter who brought his cantatas to an international audience, the name of Fritz Lehmann stands out: and indeed might still have eclipsed Richter but for his early death in 1956, at the age of just 51 and significantly just before the stereo era would move recorded music into a new era. Lehmann’s recorded legacy is nonetheless significant on its own terms, made mostly for Deutsche Grammophon and encompassing the Brahms’s German Requiem, and a Christmas Oratorio which he was recording at the time of his death, completed by Günther Arndt and now reissued by Eloquence (4827637).