Tractus

Tractus emphasizes Arvo Pärt compositions that blend the timbres of choir and string orchestra. New versions predominate, with focused performances from the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Tõnu Kaljuste’s direction that invite alert and concentrated listening. From the opening composition Littlemore Tractus, which takes as its starting point consoling reflections from a sermon by John Henry Newman, the idea of change, transfiguration and renewal resonates, setting a tone for a recording whose character is one of summing up, looking inward, and reconciling with the past.

Arvo Pärt - Triodion and Other Choral Works - Polyphony & Stephen Layton (2003) {Hyperion SACD Hybrid SACDA67375}
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© 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.

Johannes Ockeghem & Pierre de La Rue - Requiem - Diabolus in Musica & Antoine Guerber (2018) {Bayard Musique 308 475.2}
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© 2018 Bayard Musique | 308 475.2
Classical / Medieval / Renaissance / Early Music / Sacred / Polyphony

This is not a groundbreaking album, but it's a very enjoyable interpretation of two long-time favorites: I can't say as I've ever fetishized the Requiem genre the way that some may have, but there's no arguing with the quality of this music. Ockeghem's reputation remains unchallenged today, and the Requiem is one of his most austere & enduring works. The transition from an earlier style to more elaborate counterpoint of the period also seems to mark something of the medieval twilight…. La Rue has been the most generally compelling composer of the next generation for me, and his Requiem is a virtuoso tour-de-force of low lows & high highs, not to mention the contrapuntal intricacy that La Rue developed to a level of subtlety like no one else….

This Requiem is known in five sources; two of them mention no composer, two attribute it to Antoine de Févin, one, the Occo Codex, to Antoine Divitis. It is recorded here in the version transmitted by an early sixteenth-century manuscript, the Occo Codex, a sumptuous, richly illuminated volume. The book was originally intended for use in worship at one of the oldest churches in Amsterdam, built in the fourteenth century on the site of a miracle which played a fundamental role in constituting the religious identity of Amsterdam. Occo was the name of the rich merchant who financed the production of the manuscript.

On the death of Anne of Brittany, her husband King Louis XII honoured her with exceptional funeral ceremonies lasting forty days, which sealed forever her image as Queen of France and Duchess of Brittany. As he prepared this programme centring on the Missa pro defunctis of Antoine de Févin, and read the exceptionally vivid narrative by the herald of Anne of Brittany (whom her subjects nicknamed simply ‘Bretaigne’!), Denis Raisin Dadre realised that beyond all this official mourning staged by the royal authority, there was also a silent sorrow, that of the Bretons who had lost their duchess and were also in the process of losing their duchy’s independence.