Choral Music

Bang on a Can, Brooklyn, Chamber Music, Choral Music, Classical Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Festivals, jazz, Music Events, Performers, Premieres

Bang on a Can Long Play Festival 2022: An Interview with David Lang

Two years ago, I was editing a 2020 interview with the composer David Lang about the new multi-day festival that Bang on a Can planned for that spring, Long Play, when I realized the significance of the festival title. The year 2020 would be Bang on a Can’s 33rd anniversary. Long Play = LP = 33 rpm. Very clever! Although the festival was delayed for two years, it retains its name. The inaugural Long Play festival takes place on April 29, April 30 and May 1, 2022 at a half-dozen venues in Brooklyn, including BAM, Roulette, Littlefield, the Center for Fiction, Mark Morris

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by Gail Wein
CD Review, Choral Music, File Under?

Three Recordings for Holy Week (CD Review)

J.S. Bach: St. Matthäus-Passion Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon Harmonia Mundi 2xCD   J.S. Bach: St. John Passion English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir, John Eliot Gardiner, conductor Deutsche Grammophon 2XCD   The Bach Passions are a staple of the choral repertoire for Holy Week, and there are a number of fine recordings of them. There’s room for more; two additions to this corpus from 2022 are extraordinary: a St. Matthew Passion recorded by Pygmalion, directed by Raphaël Pichon for HM, and a St. John Passion by one of the great Bach conductors, John Eliot Gardiner, with his house bands the English Baroque

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by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

Best of 2021: Holiday Music

Hodie Christus Natus Est Boston Camerata, Anne Azéma Harmonia Mundi CD   A trio of female singers accompanied by hurdy gurdy, harp, rebec, and bells present a diverse program of medieval Christmas music in English, Latin, Italian, Iberian, and French. Plainsong hymns, responses, carols, and dances, all by anonymous sources, are performed with impeccable sound, blend, and tuning and an impressive variety of approaches. Some of the music is intoned as chant while other pieces are metricized. This repertoire would not have appeared together in a single performance, especially given the blend of sacred and secular pieces, but Hodie Christus

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by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

Josquin 500 Part Two

Josquin 500 Part Two The Josquin Legacy Gesualdo Six Harmonia Mundi CD In Principio De Labyrintho, Walter Tesolin Baryton CD Josquin Desprez The Renaissance Master – Sacred Music and Chansons Cappella Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss Ensemble Clément Janequin, Ensemble Organum, Marcel Pérès Ensemble Les Eléments,  Ensemble Clément Janequin, Dominique Visse Huelgas-Ensemble, Paul Van Nevel La Chapelle Royale, Philippe Herreweghe Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier Harmonia Mundi 3xCD Josquin and the Franco-Flemish School Ensemble Gille Binchois Kings Singers Early Music Consort of London Hilliard Ensemble Warner Classics 34XCD boxed set Josquin – Baisiez Moy thélème, Jean-Christophe Groffe  Aparté CD   These releases

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by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Cantus Records Manifesto

Cantus Manifesto Signum Classics   The all-male vocal ensemble Cantus’s first full length recording in seven years, Manifesto, features pieces, all in world premiere recordings, that explore relationships and identity. The title work is a piece by David Lang, the text taken from answers to a Google Search auto-complete list of the query “I want to be with someone who…” It was originally commissioned by Cantus for a program titled “The Four Loves.” Lang’s piece signifies romantic love and is written in a minimal style, the textual repetitions being a hallmark of his approach. “If I Profane,” by Libby Larsen,

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by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

Cinquecento Sings Isaac (CD Review)

Heinrich Isaac Missa Wohlauff gut Gsell von hinnen and other works Cinquecento Hyperion Records    While not as famous today as Josquin, Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517) was a contemporary and rival much esteemed during his lifetime. The main work programmed on this recording, Missa Wohlauff gut Gsell von hinnen, makes an explicit connection between the two composers. Comment peult avoir joye?, a monophonic chanson also set polyphonically by Josquin (included on the CD for comparison’s sake), was the subject of a paraphrase mass set early in his career by Isaac. Later, when Isaac was in the service of the Habsburg Emperor

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by Christian Carey
CDs, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

Cappella Amsterdam (Best of 2020)

Roland de Lassus Inferno – Motets for Six and Eight Voices Cappella Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss, director Harmonia Mundi CD Roland de Lassus (1530-1594)  – also known as Orlando di Lasso – was one of the most important vocal composers of the sixteenth century. His extant catalog contains more than 2,000 pieces in nearly every sacred genre as well as madrigals, chansons, and lieder. Much of his career was spent in Munich in the service of Duke Albrecht V of Prussia. The motets that appear on Inferno, a Harmonia Mundi CD of six and eight voice pieces, come from this stage

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by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

Ora Singers – Spem In Alium. Vidi Aquam (CD Review)

Spem in Alium. Vidi Aquam Ora Singers, Suzi Digby Harmonia Mundi, 2020 English choral group the Ora Singers, led by Suzi Digby, present Thomas Tallis’s magnificent forty-part motet Spem in Alium on their latest Harmonia Mundi recording. Split into eight choirs of five apiece, the singers are given many opportunities to overlap in successive entrances, interact among cohorts, and sound immensely scored chords. The Ora Singers present a beautiful performance that combines purity of sound with thrilling forte climaxes. Digby deserves plaudits for her careful shaping of phrases and mastery of Spem’s myriad challenging balancing acts.  Most of the rest

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by Christian Carey
Choral Music, File Under?, Twentieth Century Composer

Penderecki’s Passion: a new recording

Krzysztof Penderecki St. Luke Passion BIS Records Sarah Wegener, soprano; Lucas Meachem, baritone; Matthew Rose, bass Sławomir Holland, speaker Warsaw Boys’ Choir; Kraków Philharmonic Choir Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Kent Nagano, conductor Krzysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion (1966) garnered international acclaim that raised the composer’s stature substantially. Penderecki had a long relationship with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, appearing with them a number of times as a guest conductor from 1979-2015. The orchestra gave the Canadian premiere of St. Luke Passion with Nagano conducting. This live recording was made at the Felsenreitschule Salzburg Festival in July, 2018 with the composer

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by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

Stile Antico – A Spanish Nativity (CD Review)

A Spanish Nativity Stile Antico Harmonia Mundi 902312 The “Golden Age” of Spanish polyphony (during the sixteenth century) yielded a number of pieces suitable for Christmastime by some of the finest composers of the Renaissance: Tomás Luis de Victoria, Franciso Guerrero, and Cristóbal de Morales. On the a cappella vocal group Stile Antico’s latest disc, A Spanish Nativity, these leading lights are set alongside Alonso Lobo, Mateo Flecha el Viejo, and Pedro Rimonte; all three’s music is worthy of revival. The dozen singers of Stile Antico create an extraordinarily well-blended sound on Victoria’s great motet “O Magnum Mysterium,” Guerrero’s “Beata

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by Christian Carey