Rias Kammerchor Wolfgang Rihm Astralis & Other Choral Works

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.

As a composer of sacred music, Bob Chilcott has found his own niche by writing accessible choral works that speak to contemporary sensibilities. As has been noted frequently, his Requiem evokes Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Duruflé, mostly through its gentle feeling and serene melodies, though without imitating their style or content. Rather, it has its own mix of somber harmonies and fluid, chantlike lines, and the expression of the work is a little cooler and darker. Chilcott's music admits occasional and mild dissonance, though the orientation is strongly modal and the harmonies always feel like a natural result of the counterpoint. Chilcott's Salisbury Motets, Downing Service, and three shorter pieces share the same modern Anglican style, which is approachable and easy to follow. The Wells Cathedral Choir, under the direction of Matthew Owens, sings with a pure tone and clear diction, and the sound of the recordings is quite resonant, thanks to the responsive acoustics of the Cathedral of St. Andrew.

In spite of the differences of time and distance, the choral works of the Australian composer Andrew Anderson (born in Melbourne in 1971) further the English cathedral tradition of such composers as Finzi and Howells, in music concerned particularly with lyricism and with clarity and directness of expression.

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.

The intensely practical choral music of the young Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds is steadily gaining appreciation across the world. The works on this new album owe their genesis to commissions from the United States, England and northern Europe and encompass ethereal expressions of uniquely arctic phenomena (listen for wine glasses turned—and tuned—to wondrously simple but devastating effect within the choral texture), American ballads and several works in the ‘Anglican tradition’, the fruits of the composer’s recent residency at Trinity College Cambridge. Trinity College Choir Cambridge here returns the compliment, as it were, with superlative performances of these varied and engaging works, all recorded under the watchful eye of the composer and conductor Stephen Layton.

Jekabs Jancevskis is a young Latvian composer and an exponent of that thrilling, accessible brand of choral writing which ourishes in the Baltic States as nowhere else, and which has become something of an established Hyperion enthusiasm. ‘On the evidence of this recording, [Jančevskis] has found subtle and authentic ways of furthering the distinctive sound of Latvian choral music established in the last century… few more beautiful realisations of Latvia’s choral language have come my way in the past decade… one wonders where that Latvian sound can go and what events will shape it. There’s plenty of time for Jančevskis, still in his twenties, to think on that’ (Gramophone)

I have been a big fan of Estonian music for a while now, and, comparing these pieces with Sumera’s symphonies and chamber music, I was pleasantly surprised by an even greater expressive freedom in his choral writing. Estonia has a very strong vocal tradition, and Sumera’s work on this CD engages very much with a direct, sometimes even confrontational manner of communicating text, though without quite the blood, sweat, iron and tears of Tormis.

Dominy Clements @ musicweb-international

Arvo Pärt - Triodion and Other Choral Works - Polyphony & Stephen Layton (2003) {Hyperion SACD Hybrid SACDA67375}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 266 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 187 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 22 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2003 Hyperion | SACD Hybrid | SACDA67375
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Choral

A new release from Polyphony, with Stephen Layton at the helm, always brings with it an assurance of singing of the highest possible calibre. Bring together a choir of such quality and the composer responsible for some of the most beautiful, transcendent music ever written, and the resultant disc is surely what must be one of, if not the most spectacular releases of the year. New works from Arvo Pärt are invariably cherished, and this disc contains no fewer than five world premiere recordings—Dopo la vittoria, Nunc dimittis, Littlemore Tractus, My heart's in the Highlands and Salve regina. It was recorded in the presence of the enraptured composer earlier this year at the Temple Church, London. This is a disc of achingly lovely music at its most mesmeric—prepare to be stunned.