John Rutter

The album joins the label’s other critically and commercially successful recordings, which continue to be streamed by thousands of listeners around the world, including In The Bleak Midwinter which was released in 2021. Rutter Orchestral Carols includes beautiful orchestral arrangements of well-known favourites such as Silent Night and Sans Day Carol as well as Rutter’s original carols All bells in paradise and All the stars looked down, which is dedicated to the late Sir Stephen Cleobury. “It was a pleasure to record a handful of John’s carols, some old, some new, in these colourful orchestrations… hopefully these new tracks will add a bit of magic to people’s Christmas this year,” said Daniel Hyde, Director of Music, King’s College

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.

John Rutter - Requiem & other sacred music (2003)
Timothy Brown - Choir of Clare College, Cambridge - City of London Sinfonia
Choral | EAC | FLAC+log+cue | booklet scans | Naxos 8.557131 | 1CD | 241 MB

Anyone who has ever sung the Rutter `Requiem' gets it in their bones, and it stays there. This may not be the most profound Requiem ever composed, but it is certainly one of the most beautiful.

As exclusive Chandos artists, the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge here presents its second release. The first CD, of choral music by Howells (CHAN10587), was released to rave reviews in March this year. Choir and Organ wrote: ‘There is musicianship here of a rare and moving kind.’ This new release of popular choral classics should meet with a similar reception while at the same time appealing to a wider audience.

Herbert Howells was acutely sensitive to the transience of life, having witnessed the loss of friends and contemporaries in the First World War and encountered deep personal tragedy when his son Michael died of polio at the age of just nine. And so a mood of elegiac yearning inhabits much of his choral music: the austere, lovely a cappella Requiem, and the elegant Take him, earth, for cherishing, commissioned to commemorate the death of President John F Kennedy, here lovingly performed by the young voices of Trinity College Choir, Cambridge, in Hyperion’s Record of the Month for April 2012.

A Garland for Linda is a benefit album for the cancer-fighting organization the Garland Appeal. It is also a tribute album to Linda McCartney, who died of breast cancer in 1998. Her husband, Paul McCartney, contributes one selection, but it's not a pop song – it's a classical piece. It is one of ten classical pieces, all written for Linda McCartney, by such modern classical composers as John Tavener, Judith Bingham, David Matthews, John Rutter, Roxanna Ranufnik, Michael Berkeley, Giles Swayne, and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett. The pieces are all similar in tone – gentle, sometimes somber, yet always sweet. There may not be any major works here, but everyone's heart is in the right place, and the result is a sentimental mood piece that floats charmingly on its affection.

Five centuries, seven languages, and six singers with 35 years of remarkable experience inform this rare collection of choral music. In the world-renowned King's Singers resplendent voices, ancient and modern choral music comes to life with all the blazing immediacy and timeliness of the gospel of the nativity. With 25 pieces of music–ranging from familiar works such as "Coventry Carol" to the obscure Tchaikovsky piece "The Crown of Roses"–the King's Singers move through this hallowed and festive set with the vocal mastery that only three-and-a-half decades of accomplished work together is capable of creating. A number of contemporary carols written in the last century by composers such as John McCabe, Philip Lawson, John Rutter, and others are balanced by pieces by Bach and a host of traditional works. Lawson's "You Are the New Day," performed with a string quartet, stands out as one of the more notable performances. Like most of their music throughout Christmas, it reminds listeners that the art of music often interprets divine aspects gladly realized here on Earth.

The Beatles were not only hugely influential on the world of popular music. The creative genius of John Lennon and Paul McCartney inspired many classical musicians to create their own arrangements of these iconic songs. This 2-CD set is the ultimate classical Beatles collection, featuring a selection of arrangements. The first CD consists of arrangements for classical guitar (surely the most appropriate of all classical instruments!) including Cuban composer Leo Brouwer’s suite for guitar and strings From Yesterday to Penny Lane. The second CD, Fron Male Voice Choir newly-recorded performance of Yesterday and Hey Jude, and a rousing finale of Let It Be by Arthur Fiedler and The Boston Pops. One of the highlights of the set is The Beatles Concerto, an arrangement for two pianos and orchestra featuring eight Beatles songs, by the celebrated English composer John Rutter. Also included is Beatlecracker Suite, a fascinating arrangement of Lennon and McCartney songs in the style of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite – a true lost classic composed in 1965 at the very height of ‘Beatlemania’.