The Hilliard Ensemble

Palestrina's settings from the Song of Songs are among his most rich and passionate work, with the erotic imagery of Solomon's words used as allegories for Christ and the Church, and they form a powerful, intense and very beautiful set of motets.

From Ockeghem born around 1420 to Lassus dead in 1594 via Josquin des Prés, this 8-CD collection presents almost two centuries of masterworks from one of the most extraordinary musical school, that could be compared to the Italian Renaissance in architecture or painting. The Hilliard Ensemble, founded by Paul Hillier in 1974 has championed this music with all the virtues of their instantly recognizable style and with a clarity and cleanness of timbre that are matchless.

Boris Yoffee was born in Russia in 1968. There, he studied violin and composition and before the breakup of the Soviet Union he immigrated to Israel, where he studied at Tel Aviv University. In 1997, he moved to Germany to study composition with Wolfgang Rihm. By 2009, he had amassed an enormous number of short works. Thus, the performers who had been asked to record his Song of Songs looked through approximately 800 of them in order to select the pieces they wanted to perform. The Rosamunde Quartet is a German string quartet that was formed in 1992; since the group disbanded in 2010, this is its last recording. The Hilliard Ensemble is a British male vocal quartet that is well known for its performance of Renaissance, medieval, and contemporary music. It has often performed the works of Arvo Pärt, whose music is somewhat similar to that of Yoffe.

This 2009 ECM disc containing the world premiere of Alfred Schnittke's Ninth Symphony, the composer's final work, will be mandatory listening for fans of post-modernist Russian music, or contemporary music in general. Begun after the premiere of Schnittke's Eighth Symphony in 1994 and unfinished at the composer's death in 1998, the Ninth existed only as three movements of manuscript (and indecipherable manuscript at that: a stroke had paralyzed Schnittke's right side, forcing him to write with his left hand) until composer Alexandr Raskatov deciphered the manuscript and conductor Dennis Russell Davies presented its premiere. As presented in this January 2008 recording, Schnittke's Ninth continues and extends the austere sound world of the Eighth into ever more severe zones. There's no denying this is the authentic voice of Schnittke: the etiolated textures, abrupt gestures, timeless tempos, and haunting themes have clear roots in the composer's preceding works. Davies and the excellent Dresdner Philharmonie appear acutely conscious that the Ninth was the composer's last work, but the tone of leave-taking is inherent in Schnittke's inward music.

The brief opening piece for chorus on this new release, "Da Pacem Domine," is based on a 9th century Gregorian work and has the usual, familiar–and very beautiful–Pärt-ian characteristics: a soft, endless stream of easy tritones and harmonies that make this plea for peace immensely moving. The major work, Lamentate, is scored for large orchestra and solo piano–a very unusual combination for Pärt. Even his fans will be surprised. In ten brief sections, it begins with a quiet drum roll, immediately followed by horn calls. There are forte explosions for full orchestra and piano, with heavy percussion. At times the only thing we hear is a hushed piano part with strings supporting very quietly. The effect is dark yet alluring. It ends peacefully. This is another stunning CD of Pärt's music for his fans–old and new.

The blend between the voices is finely controlled, the tone mellow and the tuning spectacularly accurate, giving rise to an organ-like sonority that is genuinely thrilling,” wrote Gramophone magazine, praising the Hilliard Ensemble’s four singers, who excelled in an extraordinary variety of music over a 40-year career. This seven-CD collection extends from the Middle Ages to the Baroque, offering music by composers from England, France, Flanders and Germany.

In 1994, explains the booklet that accompanies Morimur, Professor Helga Thoene made the surprising discovery that the monumental "Ciaccona" from Bach's Partita in D minor for solo violin was built around various chorale themes hidden in the music. From the texts of these "secret" chorales and other symbolic musical devices, she deduced that the "Ciaccona" was an epitaph for Bach's wife, Maria Barbara. The revelation might have remained an intriguing (and touching) footnote to Bach scholarship if baroque violinist Christoph Poppen hadn't had the bright idea of taking Professor Thoene's discovery off the library shelves and placing it triumphantly in the concert hall. On this disc, his performance of all five movements of the whole Partita (BWV 1004) is interspersed with the various chorales hidden inside the "Ciaccona," sung with breathtaking precision by the Hilliard Ensemble.

25 years on from the release of Officium, the groundbreaking alliance of Jan Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble, comes Remember me, my dear, recorded during the final tour the group made in October 2014.
Named for the Scottish ballad which concludes it, the programme is emblematic of the range of repertoire the Norwegian saxophonist and British vocal quartet explored together from Pérotin, Hildegard von Bingen, Guillaume le Rouge, Antoine Brumel to Komitas, Arvo Pärt and more.