Estonian Philharcred Choral Works

As Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt both adopted the Orthodox faith in the 1970s, Orthodox choral traditions became increasingly prominent in their work, but both composers also looked to the music of the Western church. Schnittke’s Three Sacred Hymns set three prayers, familiar in the West as Ave Maria, the Jesus Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer, and evoke Orthodox chant. His Choir Concerto, on the other hand, draws on Russian choral music of the 19th century and the tradition of large-scale concert works based on Orthodox choral music. The texts by the medieval Armenian poet Gregory of Narek are informed by a humanistic individualism, with the poet directly expressing his emotions and often writing in the first person.

This recording has a huge advantage over most of its rivals for the attention of Tallis listeners: the wonderful acoustics of Winchester Cathedral. In this magnificent space, the soaring lines and resplendent harmonies of Tallis's greatest masterpieces find sympathetic resonance, resulting in a heightened dramatic presence that takes the music beyond earthly confines. Of course, beyond the exceptional quality of the writing, credit must go to the phenomenal men and boys of Winchester Cathedral Choir. Where, even in England, does one find trebles who sing with more assuredness, musicality, and beauty of tone? With a repertoire including "In ieiunio et fletu," "Salvator mundi," "In manus tuas," "The Lamentations of Jeremiah," "O nata lux," and the unbelievable 40-part motet "Spem in alium," this is the Tallis disc to own if you're buying only one.

This generously programmed disc provides excellent value and outstanding performances of both major and lesser-known masterpieces of French choral music. The Fauré Requiem has been recorded many times, and several excellent versions of the original orchestration are available on disc. This one is among them, owing to John Eliot Gardiner's experience and perfectionist mastery of details overlooked by less-successful choral conductors. The real bonus here is the inclusion of the popular but very difficult Debussy and Ravel chansons, and the rarely heard but eminently worthy little part songs by Saint-Saëns. These pieces are a lesson in how to achieve maximum effect with the simplest materials.

The English composer Alec Roth has been active for several decades and collaborated with Indian novelist Vikram Seth on an opera in the 1990s. Here he seems to tread into the profitable choral music territory mined by John Rutter. Although he is in no way a clone of Rutter, your reactions to that composer may give you an idea of how you'll feel about the Roth works here.

Stephen Paulus was an astonishingly prolific fixture of the American music scene, with some 600 works to his credit. His sudden death in 2014 left classical music—particularly the worlds of opera and choral music—significantly the poorer, so it’s inevitable that we should see his legacy memorialised with new additions to the catalogue. Royal Holloway’s ‘Calm on the Listening Ear of Night’ sets Paulus’s music in dialogue with another Midwestern composer, René Clausen. It’s Clausen whose musical personality emerges most strongly here in these precise performances. His works offer a distinctively American spin on the fashionable Baltic sound world of Ešenvalds and Vasks that is as appealing as it is generous. In pace, which opens the disc, offers eight minutes of lushly filmic excess.

This collection of short choral pieces by Johannes Brahms is an unusual one in present times, partly because many of the choral parts are quite demanding. For a choral club in the 19th century, however, it wouldn't have been so novel, and there are great beauties on offer here. After the fetching Ave Maria, Op. 12, the rest of the program is dense, metaphysical, and, with the partial exception of the Alto Rhapsody, Op. 53, concerned with death. There are two funeral songs, and two more about fate, and this is not the warm, humanistic Brahms of the German Requiem, Op. 45. The performances are profound and dignified, and the overall effect uncanny. The Warsaw Philharmonic Choir under choirmaster Henryk Wojnarowski has a gorgeous rich tone that is undiminished by the long lines of the music, and the Alto Rhapsody achieves real grandeur in the hands of contralto Ewa Wolak. But the real credit goes to the Warsaw Philharmonic and conductor Antoni Wit, who keep a consistent level of tension and momentum in difficult, dark material like the somber Nänie, Op. 82 (Funeral Song), a rarely performed late Brahms masterwork.

One of Brahms' earliest musical jobs (besides playing piano in whorehouses) was directing a choral society. This introduced him to the music of the Renaissance and the Baroque, which sparked his antiquarian enthusiasms, in particular his first-hand encounters with the choral music of Bach. Choral music became an important part of Brahms' output – to his art, to his career (Ein deutsches Requiem propelled him to European notice), and to his income. Brahms may have directed much of his choral music to the then-lucrative amateur market, but he also produced plenty for crack choirs and without much reasonable hope for financial reward – again, Ein deutsches Requiem a good example. Like the Requiem, some of these works even became popular.

Petr Eben drew upon the Old Testament and sacred texts from early church fathers for his powerful sacred vocal works. Latin was his preferred language for these settings, and he favoured Gregorian chant which he used as inspiration for his weaving polyphonic lines, complex rhythms and irregular patterning. This body of work, written in the teeth of party opposition in Czechoslovakia – born a Jew, Eben became a practising Catholic – is one of the most important by a Czech composer in the twentieth-century.