Choral Masters 1950-2000

[Maciek]

Hey, that's 16 before shipping charges.

Plus, back when those ProViva discs were still available in Poland, one could get them for the equivalent of 10 euros (or maybe even 8, I forget - I think I got one of them for 7.50 once, new).

[I see that used copies go for 5-6. But amazon marketplace is still out-of-bounds for Eastern Europeans, unfortunately... Or perhaps luckily, since it sort of limits one's choices. 0:)]

[ibanezmonster]

And this. Among Pawel Szymanski's most famous works:

His technique is surely unmistakable. It's like the most random atonal thing you can think of, except it's shaped by being completely tonal, somewhat even in dynamics, and to where rhythmically it forms a sort of "cloud rhythm" (think Ligeti's Atmospheres or Lontano).

[Mirror Image]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned James MacMillan yet. His Seven Last Words from the Cross is supposedly a masterpiece. I haven't heard it yet. Arvo Part, is, of course, one of my favorite choral composers with works like Miserere, Te Deum, Litany, and Berliner Messe being favorites of mine. Bernstein's Chichester Psalms is another favorite choral work of mine. Stravinsky's Mass is another one of my favorites. It seems that most of my favorite choral works came from the early 1900s however.

[lescamil]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned James MacMillan yet. His Seven Last Words from the Cross is supposedly a masterpiece. I haven't heard it yet.

Hopefully, you won't be disappointed. It is perhaps one of the best in his entire catalogue. Some other choral works worth noting are his Cantos Sagrados, Visitatio Sepulchri, and Sun Dogs. A personal favorite of mine is Cantos Sagrados, which juxtaposes Latin-American poetry with selections from the Latin mass texts. The organist accompanying the choir gets a real workout in this virtuosic piece. There is also a version for chorus and orchestra, but it has yet to be recorded. For the Pärt fans, his Mass is worth looking at. It is perhaps the most comprehensive insight into MacMillan's religious side. It has an ethereal organ accompaniment and even has a cantor to lead the whole piece forward, much like the priest in a real liturgy.

[Mirror Image]

Hopefully, you won't be disappointed. It is perhaps one of the best in his entire catalogue. Some other choral works worth noting are his Cantos Sagrados, Visitatio Sepulchri, and Sun Dogs. A personal favorite of mine is Cantos Sagrados, which juxtaposes Latin-American poetry with selections from the Latin mass texts. The organist accompanying the choir gets a real workout in this virtuosic piece. There is also a version for chorus and orchestra, but it has yet to be recorded. For the Pärt fans, his Mass is worth looking at. It is perhaps the most comprehensive insight into MacMillan's religious side. It has an ethereal organ accompaniment and even has a cantor to lead the whole piece forward, much like the priest in a real liturgy.

I've already heard selections from it via YouTube and was moved by what I heard, but I can't wait to hear the CD. I'll have to checkout Cantos Sagrados. I normally prefer an ensemble of some kind in choral music, but I'll try to track this work down. Thanks for you heads up.

[listener]

In the conservative fields there's John Rutter and Eric Whitacre to look at,
and a favourite of mine is Joby Talbot's Path of Miracles, an excellent performance on this recording.   (possibly post-2000, but nothing to fear)

[asin]B000FBHO44[/asin]

[knight66]

Carl Rutti's Requiem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PpCgHvsBb8

Here is a piece of real lasting quality. Very moving and gratful on the ear. It starts and ends with a single voice expressing the idea that we come into life and leave it; alone.

Following is an extract of an interview with the composer.

How did this recording / composition come about?
A member of Cambridge Voices, Tim Lewers, also a member of the Bach Choir, introduced me to David Hill. David commissioned a work for choir and orchestra suggesting I write a Requiem - using more or less the same forces as in the Fauré Requiem - aware of the fact that this means a huge challenge for any composer.

What inspires you and your work?
When I first heard an English choir sing so purely, I thought it was like a piano of human voices. This inspired me to experiment at the piano with this medium, having choirs in mind. (A climax of these experiments surely was my motet for 40 parts Veni Creator Spiritus written for Cambridge Voices to go with Tallis' Spem in Alium.)
I also find inspiration by walking in the countryside and by watching paintings. I can never force an inspiration to happen, and therefore have to trust in my faith: I find the Bible a rich source of inspiration.

Mike

[MDL]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned James MacMillan yet. His Seven Last Words from the Cross is supposedly a masterpiece.

It's a fascinating work. Not sure if I'd call it a masterpiece, but others will disagree. I've got the Hyperion recording, but the more recent Naxos received some great reviews, which is good news if you're counting the pennies.

[Maciek]

His technique is surely unmistakable. It's like the most random atonal thing you can think of, except it's shaped by being completely tonal, somewhat even in dynamics, and to where rhythmically it forms a sort of "cloud rhythm" (think Ligeti's Atmospheres or Lontano).

It is unmistakable, isn't it? For me the most striking feature of his idiom is a sort of "total polyphony", where he superimposes closely related but slightly differing structures (rhythmic, melodic, dynamic), and what emerges is an "organized chaos" (see the opening of Partita III for another perfect example). You're probably right, there is some sort of similarity to Ligeti, though the premise is completely different (the whole "precomposition" process and the subsequent deconstruction of the "precomposed" tonal music; and then a "second degree" of "decomposition" in those long quiet or even silent passages) and, on the whole, the final effect is very different too.

What is particularly interesting in Lux Aeterna is the way he builds a fragile, "transparent" texture meant to suggest light (the Everlasting Light of the title).

[Mirror Image]

It's a fascinating work. Not sure if I'd call it a masterpiece, but others will disagree. I've got the Hyperion recording, but the more recent Naxos received some great reviews, which is good news if you're counting the pennies.

I have two versions of it on the way: MacMillan's on RCA and Layton on Hyperion.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Though he is too modest to mention it himself, and this piece is slightly more recent, I still want to add our own Karl Henning's [now Apollon] moving The Passion According to St John. It makes the story of the suffering of Christ very human. It still awaits a performance that will do it full justice. But here's a link:


http://rapidshare.com/files/140041370/5_Karl_Henning_-_The_Passion_According_to_St_John__Opus_92.mp3

[Luke]

Silvestrov's choral music is pretty special - if one likes that Orthodox/Rachmaninov/Schnittke choral music intersection, this is just perfect (I don't want to imply that Silvestrov is just the sum of parts...or Parts...no, this is a highly personal and fascinating branch of his muisc). There is an ECM disc which is self-recommending...



but the standout piece for me, by a long way, is Testament, which, whilst on this disc and and least one more (which I have) receives the most moving, wonderful performance on this gorgeous disc on Gavin Bryars' GB label



In the liner notes Bryars says something to the effect that, whilst working in Latvia with the choir he heard them sing this piece by Silvestrov which was, quite simply, the most beautiful music he'd ever heard. And one can hear why he thought that hearing them sing it on this disc...

[Luke]

...reviews and album descriptions of the ECM disc from amazon:

BBC review
Here is a ravishing collection of a cappella choral works by the Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov that perfectly illustrates his own description of his music as "a response to and an echo of what already exists".
For anyone new to Silvestrov, the initial surprise of these sacred works won't lie in the crafted precision of their execution – a facet recognisably rooted in the composer's avant-garde beginnings. Instead, it is the sheer beauty of sound that catches the ear. Luminous and lyrical, these miniature settings of hymns, psalms and chants seem to float in a diaphanous light that hypnotically conjures up a fleeting sense of the ineffability of faith.

Glancing idiomatic echoes of near-neighbours Górecki, Pärt and Kancheli aside, what's on offer here is Holy Minimalism only by association, its rootedness in the mystery of the mystical finding expression in a markedly more distilled, almost monastic manner.

Diptych, the earliest piece here, dates from 1995 (Silvestrov came relatively late to choral music) and couples a hushed setting of The Lord's Prayer with a poem by Taras Shevchenko that manages to be simultaneously plangent and effusive. There's something of the bittersweet at the core of most of this music. Litany, the first of the Liturgical Chants composed in 2005, is shot through with a tangible melancholia etched into sharp relief by filigree-delicate choral writing and a deep, darkly sonorous solo bass. The following year's three-part Alleluia moves from Evening through Morning to Night in an elongated arc that glistens with all the fleeting wonder of a shooting star evaporating into darkness.

Infused with the baleful beauty of Russian Orthodoxy, the sectional voices, shifting harmonies and emotional thrust of Silvestrov's music accommodates absorbing introspection and joyous epiphanic release with a becoming tenderness and modesty that approaches the sublime. Undiluted spiritual bliss is given vent in the light-as-sir Christmas Song, the exuberant O Praise God in His Sanctuary (Psalm 150) and the lullaby-like Cherubic Song.

Acutely sensitive performances by the Kiev Chamber Choir under Mykola Hobdych – who prompted the composition of the majority of the material here – ring out with crystalline beauty in the softly resonant acoustic of Kiev's Cathedral of the Dormition. --Michael Quinn


CD Description
This album of sacred a cappella works from recent years - music of haunting beauty, characterised in turns by calm introspection and serene lightness - offers a fascinating addition to the wide spectrum of works by Valentin Silvestrov on ECM New Series. The imprint, recently named 'Label of the Year' in the 2009 Gramophone Awards, has championed the Ukrainian master (born 1937) since 2001, but Sacred Works represents a new development by the composer.
Silvestrov's compositions for chamber choir have a uniquely transparent sound with otherwordly shifting harmonies and free timing. The pieces were written mostly in 2005/06 on the instigation of chorus master Mykola Hobdych and these ravishing performances - displaying astounding flexibility and polish - are very much "authentic": the Kiev Chamber Choir have repeatedly studied the pieces with the composer and gave the premières of the majority.

Silvestrov's interest in the choir came comparatively late. Partly due to conductor Mykola Hobdych's persistent encouragement, he immersed himself more deeply in the choral world and began to study old Russian litanies. Once he had started reading them, he was so fascinated that he wrote some 40 minutes of music within two weeks. By treating the choir as an ensemble of "extremely modest" soloists and dividing the sections into small groups, Silvestrov acquires unique sonic and harmonic effects and an utmost flexibility of melody and rhythm. Its lyrical fluency and introvert tenderness brings Silvestrov's choral writing close to his much-lauded Silent Songs, to Requiem for Larissa and his music for solo piano.

and of the GB disc:

Gavin Bryars was guest composer at the Arena Festival in Riga
in 2003. His first concert there was with the Latvian Radio Choir in the
very beautiful St John's Church. Working closely with them made him realize
that "this is probably one of the finest choirs in the world today" and he
"experienced at first hand the extraordinary beauty of its choral sound,
the precision of its ensemble, perfection of its intonation, subtlety of
its phrasing, as well as the striking individuality of its soloists". He
resolved to find the opportunity to do more with them and proposed a series
of recordings, of which this is the first.
For the first time on GB Records Gavin has also included composers other
than himself. This came about because of his work with the choir, and from
a particular incident. For the first concert in Riga the choir sang in two
different formations - as it does here. One was a large ensemble of 50
voices for 'Three Poems of Cecco Angiolieri' and one a medium ensemble of
24 voices for 'And so ended Kant's travelling in this world'. Arriving
early for the rehearsal he heard the choir sing a work he did not know but
thought "the most beautiful music I had ever heard". He later learned that
it was by Valentin Silvestrov (the Ukrainian composer championed by ECM)
and was one of the very few pieces of choral music that he had written.
Gavin Bryars resolved at that moment to include this music on the recording
and enable it to be heard more widely.

Subsequently he decided to add another extraordinary work by Latvian Arturs
Maskats. Getting to know Latvian and other Baltic composers has been one
the pleasures and privileges of working with the choir and he now has a
lively working relationship, and strong personal friendship, with its two
great conductors Kaspars Putnins and Sigvards Klava.

Recorded 2005

Personnel:
Latvian Radio Choir, conducted by Sigvards Klava and Kaspars Putnins,
Edgars Saksons - (percussion), (5), Janis Maleckis - (piano), Gavin Bryars
- (harmonium) (7)

 
Customer Reviews
   
5.0 out of 5 stars buy it for Silvestrov, 4 July 2005
By A Customer

This review is from: On Photography - Bryars/Maskats/Silvestrov (Audio CD)
First things first: the Latvian Radio Choir are, as usual, outstanding. As a performing group they rank with the best in the world, including their neighbours The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. As a CD this is an interesting program. I am a long standing admirer of Bryars' work and it is nice to have these performances of his choral pieces available. Issued on his own record label (GB records) this is the type of product that would struggle to get released by the majors. What is crucial about this disc though is that it contains an absolutely outstanding version of Valentin Silvestrov's 'Diptych'. This two part work, lasting some fifteen minutes, makes this worth buying on its own merits. Silvestrov, from Kiev, Ukraine, has been getting some better exposure over the last few years: ECM records have, to date, issued four wonderful albums and Megadisc, in Belgium, are also issuing records. Silvestrov is a highly individual voice in European music and one that has remained relatively unknown in relation to his contemporaries. Yet hearing his music one understands why composers like Arvo Part would describe him as one of the greatest living composers. Silvestrov composes music which is beautiful, reflective, nostalgic, elegiac. The Diptych on this disc is utterly compelling in its slow and earthy power; ebbing then flowing, building then retreating. So thumbs up to Bryars for including this on a disc that showcases his own music: in this case Silvestrov steals the show.


5.0 out of 5 stars A superb collection of works sung by a magnificent choir, 6 Jan 2008
By D. E. P. Silver (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)    This review is from: On Photography - Bryars/Maskats/Silvestrov (Audio CD)
I first heard the superb setting of the Lords Prayer by Valentin Silvestri, sung by the Latvian Radio Choir, late at night on Radio3. I was so taken by it that I purchased the oddly titled disc "On Photography" on the Gavin Bryars label which contains the Silvestri work. I wasn't disappointed - the Latvian Radio Choir sing all the works on this disc so wonderfully that I was reduced to tears just by the beauty of the sound. Like so much beautiful music, words are inadequate to describe it. I shall now be looking at all the recorded works of the Latvian Radio Choir and those of the composers on this disc. 

[Christo]

Though he is too modest to mention it himself, and this piece is slightly more recent, I still want to add our own Karl Henning's [now Apollon] moving The Passion According to St John. It makes the story of the suffering of Christ very human. It still awaits a performance that will do it full justice. But here's a link:

http://rapidshare.com/files/140041370/5_Karl_Henning_-_The_Passion_According_to_St_John__Opus_92.mp3

Fully seconded. Karl shouldn't know, but I tend to play it every year around Holy Week. Let's hope for a new recording.

[karlhenning]

I am touched, gents.

[not edward]

Most if not all that I can think of has been covered already, but works I rate very highly would include: Denisov's Requiem, a key work in his late phase, and Shostakovich's Execution of Stepan Razin. Kurtag's Songs of Despair and Sorrow are worth hearing (he has some other shorter choral works in his catalog as well). A bit more eccentricly, Tippett's Vision of St. Augustine is impressive but arguably a bit deranged; I've only heard his Mask of Time a couple of times, but I got the impression--not helped by the borrowings from the 4th symphony--of a work where the composer's inspiration was running a bit dry.

[snyprrr]

Most if not all that I can think of has been covered already, but works I rate very highly would include: Denisov's Requiem, a key work in his late phase, and Shostakovich's Execution of Stepan Razin. Kurtag's Songs of Despair and Sorrow are worth hearing (he has some other shorter choral works in his catalog as well). A bit more eccentricly, Tippett's Vision of St. Augustine is impressive but arguably a bit deranged; I've only heard his Mask of Time a couple of times, but I got the impression--not helped by the borrowings from the 4th symphony--of a work where the composer's inspiration was running a bit dry.

I've been wanting to hear that Denisov. I think we also have a striking Officium Defuncorum from C. Halffter on YouTube, check it out!

[snyprrr]

I would possibly further like to open up the conversation to those Old Works that still sound as Modern today as they did way back when. Machaut has already been mentioned.

[Luke]

I would possibly further like to open up the conversation to those Old Works that still sound as Modern today as they did way back when. Machaut has already been mentioned.

He sounds particularly modern on this quite controversial recording:

[Grazioso]

He sounds particularly modern on this quite controversial recording:

The minarets-and-muezzins version

http://www.youtube.com/v/4U7mPwGx7Ls