Herbert Simon

Hyperion’s previous recordings with Winchester Cathedral Choir are among the jewels in its choral collection. Now the label begins a new relationship with this ancient foundation and its latest director of music, Andrew Lumsden. Their new disc features a composer who was at the centre of the English twentieth-century choral tradition.

The Karajan Official Remastered Edition comprises 13 box sets containing official remasterings of the finest recordings the Austrian conductor made for EMI between 1946 and 1984, which are now a jewel of the Warner Classics catalog. This 5-CD box includes Haydn's Die Jahreszeiten, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Brahms's German Requiem performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, with renowned vocal soloists such as Walter Berry and José van Dam.

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.