This two-CD set is the most representative recording of Hahn's songs ever made. It includes the complete Etudes Latines and Rondels (both with choir) as well as many of his most familiar songs. It also includes a number of songs never recorded before now.
Here is some of the most spiritually uplifting music of our generation, sung by that most virtuosic of choirs, Polyphony. Arvo Pärt (paralleled in England by John Tavener) has succeeded in capturing the attention of a broad public through his consummate ability to weave a sense of inevitable power into music of fundamental simplicity. The impressive Berlin Mass which opens the disc was written in 1990, the Credo being a fascinating major-key reworking of the earlier minor-mode Summa; very much an expression of joy at the lifting of the Soviet embargo on ‘sacred’ music in Estonia. Annum per Annum is a monumental work for solo organ and is here performed on the organ of St Paul’s Cathedral: a thoroughly exhilarating experience. The disc ends with the masterpiece De profundis. This most powerful of texts draws from Pärt an inexorable momentum from a beginning almost out of nothing to a devastating climax.
Stephen Layton and Polyphony have a long and fruitful relationship with the music of Arvo Pärt. Their recording of Triodion and other choral works (CDA67375) won a Gramophone Award and became a cult classic. The extraordinary purity of Polyphony’s singing is the perfect vehicle for music of such clean, elemental simplicity, such cathartic calm. This third Pärt album from Stephen Layton and Polyphony reaches right back, intriguingly, to the composer’s youthful modernist phase and spans nearly five decades—from 1963 to 2012—in the process. As with the album Triodion, it reflects an increasingly broad spread of languages and sources in Pärt’s chosen texts. Latin, German and English are joined here by Church Slavonic and Spanish. A range of biblical texts are set alongside ancient prayers.
Franco-Flemish composer Pierre de la Rue contributed prolifically to the rich musical life of the Low Countries during the late fifteenth century. If today he is less well-known than some of his contemporaries, the distinguished advocacy of Stephen Rice and The Brabant Ensemble remedies the balance with these authoritative performances of the Missa Nuncqua fue pena mayor, Salve regina VI and Missa Inviolata. Pierre de la Rue is another of those composers who contributed so prolifically to the richness of musical life in the Low Countries during the late fifteenth century. If today he is less well known than some of his contemporaries, the distinguished advocacy of Stephen Rice and The Brabant Ensemble should do much to redress the balance.
'Tanyel's clear enthusiasm for this unhackneyed programme is utterly refreshing … The performance reminds us again just how well she understands the piano's Romantic repertoire' (Classic CD). 'the music here could hardly be more sympathetically presented than by Tanyel, whose performances are immaculate in their musicianship and virtuosity' (Gramophone). Seta Tanyel, the Armenian pianist, demonstrates a flair for the virtuosic style of German-Polish Scharwenka. She projects a well-rounded tone, a flexible sense of rhythm, a seamless technique, a fertile imagination and a daring panache. She seems to genuinly love these beautiful, light-hearted compositions. Scharwenka's music (who lived in the States for seven years) possesses energy, harmonic interest, strong rhythm, many beautiful melodies and much Polish national character. A highly enjoyable recording.