Hyperion

This reissue commemorates the 50th anniversary of Grainger’s death in February 1961. Harmonium, four guitars, two mandolas, two mandolins, two ukuleles, piccolo, three clarinets, bass clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon, two alto saxophones, horn, strings, piano, baritone and choir: and that’s just the scoring for one piece, the famous sea shanty Shallow Brown. Grainger’s Jungle Book cycle was recorded here (for the original Hyperion release) for the first time. The eleven contrasting movements vividly portray the sentiments of Kipling’s poetry and Grainger wrote of the cycle that it was ‘composed as a protest against civilization’.

The live performance last year of this major and substantial work by the young Latvian composer Ešenvalds thrilled critics and audiences alike. As a new liturgical work that looks set to enter the repertoire it is comparable to Arvo Pärt’s Passio. Eschewing the single narrative perspective that characterizes the great Passion settings of the past, the composer has assembled an interlocking mosaic of texts from the gospels, from Byzantine and Roman liturgies, and from the Old Testament.

Hyperion’s record of the month for July celebrates the (probable) 500th anniversary of the birth of England’s first superstar composer, Thomas Tallis, and welcomes the signing to the label of The Cardinall’s Musick and Andrew Carwood. In a fifteen-year history The Cardinall’s Musick has progressively built an enviable reputation for excellence. Some twenty recordings on the ASV Gaudeamus label have seen accolades from around the world, including a Gramophone Award and a Diapason d’Or, while in the concert hall and workshop the group has consistently displayed innovation and a freshness of approach, whether tackling contemporary works (many of them commissions) or sharing the fruits of years of research into the music of the English Renaissance.

Our second October release from Westminster Abbey tells the story of the religious and political turmoil that engulfed England in the sixteenth century, and from which composers of liturgical music could find no escape. They were forced to follow the changing edicts about permitted texts as the pendulum of power oscillated between traditional and reformed religion. Interestingly, this period saw the greatest flowering of church music in England’s history; some of the most magnificent works of the age are recorded here.

Stravinsky’s collaboration with the violinist Samuel Dushkin was a great artistic success, generating new works for the repertoire as well as arrangements of some of the composer’s most tuneful and popular works. Of these arrangements, Dushkin wrote that Stravinsky seemed ‘to go back to the essence of the music and rewrite or recreate the music in the spirit of the new instrument’. Reviewing the current performers in The Independent, Bayan Northcott writes that ‘these are no ordinary transcriptions. In reducing items from The Firebird or The Fairy’s Kiss to the violin and piano medium, Stravinsky rethought and respaced their every chord’.

The Tallis Scholars - Sing Tudor Church Music, Vol. 2
Music written by Sheppard, Tallis, White
2xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 575 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Gimell Records # CDGIM 210 | Country/Year: UK 2008
Genre: Classical | Style: Renaissance, Sacred, Vocal

"…For those newcomers to this group, suffice it to say that you will rarely find an ensemble as carefully rehearsed or skillfully prepared for the repertory they choose to engage in—simply one of the finest ever, legendary, and there has never been a disc they have released that has gotten less that rave reviews…" ~audiophile-audition

The Choir of Royal Holloway have proved themselves as inspirational performers of contemporary Baltic music through their previous recordings. The main work on this fascinating album is based on Estonian folk hymns, an unusual variant of folk melodies, collected in the early twentieth century for the first time by Cyrillus Kreek, who was the Estonian equivalent of Bartók or Grainger. Most of these religious folk songs were originally eighteenth-century Lutheran hymns which have been passed across generations and embellished with elements of secular folk-singing. During the Soviet regime, the singing of these religious songs was forbidden and this cultural genre was all but forgotten. By the end of the twentieth century fresh light could be shone on these folk collections, and Tõnu Kõrvits (born 1969) was particularly struck by the fresh possibilities and newly discovered meanings of folk hymns. In writing Kreek’s Notebook Kõrvits pays homage to Cyrillus Kreek while presenting a contemporary view of folk hymns. Although there is a dramatic unity to this eight-movement work, there is much diversity in timbre and scoring. The effect is improvisatory in the creative ornamentation of the vocal lines, and suffused with dreamy textures that bring to mind the great tradition of Eastern European choral writing.

The Tallis Scholars - Sing Tudor Church Music, Vol .1
Music written by Browne, Cornysh, Taverner, Tye
2xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 621 MB | Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Gimell Records # CDGIM 209 | Country/Year: UK 2008
Genre: Classical | Style: Renaissance, Sacred, Vocal

"…For those newcomers to this group, suffice it to say that you will rarely find an ensemble as carefully rehearsed or skillfully prepared for the repertory they choose to engage in—simply one of the finest ever, legendary, and there has never been a disc they have released that has gotten less that rave reviews…" ~audiophile-audition

Ten years ago Angela Hewitt recorded a version of The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I which dazzled the critical world and record-buying public. It was followed shortly afterwards by Book II which was similarly received. Now, fresh from her Bach World Tour—in which she performed the complete Well-Tempered Clavier from August 2007 until the end of October 2008 in 58 cities in 21 countries on six continents—Angela has made an entirely new recording of this most iconic of keyboard works.