choral music
Ein Deutsches Requiem, SCO, Emelyanychev, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - immaculate, but lacking soulWednesday, 17 May 2023From the outset, it was clear that this would be a performance of immaculate sonic architecture. Over a soft, deep, and breathy organ pedal the first utterings of the strings sounded tentative, almost improvised, like an artist making the first... Read more... |
Tenebrae, Short, St John’s Smith Square review - Bach and MacMillan soulfully joined, until the endFriday, 07 April 2023Tenebrae in tenebris: put more plainly, a top choir that’s anything but shadowy, except when it needs to be, doing its bit for the darkness of Maundy Thursday. The thoughtful plaiting of Bach motets with three Tenebrae Responsories and other works... Read more... |
Facade Ensemble, Collins Rice, St Margaret Pattens Church review - meditation and reflectionWednesday, 05 April 2023The Facade Ensemble is an interesting chamber group of young players dedicated to exploring 20th repertoire, in this case John Cage, Arvo Pärt and Gavin Bryars, who celebrates his 80th birthday this year. The programme, put together by founder and... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Christmas discs 2022Saturday, 03 December 2022GoldMund, Anna Veit: Mehr Oder Weniger Lametta – arrangements of Tchaikovsky, Bach, Humperdinck, Martin Luther, John Rutter (Solo Musica)What works best here are the classy, and occasionally witty and wacky brass arrangements, plus some very... Read more... |
BBC National Chorus of Wales, BBC NOW, Jeannin, BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff review - competent music-making, interesting choicesWednesday, 30 November 2022There are conductors, and then again there are choral conductors. I sang under David Willcocks in Tallis’s 40-part "Spem in alium" and remember vividly that long-armed semaphoring that he later applied so notably with the Bach Choir.Sofi Jeannin,... Read more... |
Watts, Williams, The Bach Choir, Philharmonia, Hill, RFH review - Vaughan Williams, from decadence to metaphysicsSaturday, 19 November 2022David Hill, long-term driving force of the Bach Choir which Vaughan Williams sang in for 18 years before becoming its music director in 1921, claims VW as “a quintessentially English composer”.That was rather less the case in Thursday night's choice... Read more... |
Gurrelieder, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - everything in place, but still something’s missingSunday, 25 September 2022Schoenberg’s “Song of the Wood Dove” takes up a mere 11 of the 100 minutes of his epic Gurrelieder, though it’s a crucial narrative of how King Waldemar of Gurre’s beloved Tove was murdered by his jealous queen. Last night, as in Simon Rattle’s 2017... Read more... |
TUKS Camerata, Voces8 Live from London online review - a diverse choral selectionTuesday, 30 August 2022The Voces8 Live from London, now in its seventh iteration, has progressed from streaming choral chamber music from an empty studio to an 80-strong visiting choir in a packed Christ Church, Spitalfields. In doing this the festival has retained its... Read more... |
Quo vadis, Three Choirs Festival review - a hundred minutes of smug serenity and flowing pietyTuesday, 26 July 2022Once upon a time the Three Choirs Festival conjured up a single image, that of the English Oratorio – the grand choral solemnification of everything that was most profound in Anglican thought (though ironically its greatest exemplar, Elgar’s Dream... Read more... |
Bevan, Williams, Bebbington, RPO, Davan Wetton, Barbican review - Vaughan Williams celebratedWednesday, 04 May 2022Amid the warm familiarity of a programme of established Vaughan Williams favourites, presented at the Barbican by the RPO and the City of London Choir, what really drew me in was the chance to hear his Fantasia on the “Old 104th” Psalm Tune,... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2021: Eliane Elias - Mirror MirrorMonday, 03 January 2022After watching so many gigs through a computer screen, it was a joy to hear live music again in familiar haunts – from Ronnie Scott’s and the Southbank to Grand Junction, Paddington – in 2021. It made you appreciate anew not only the high-wire... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Christmas 2021, Part 1Saturday, 11 December 2021Michael Praetorius: Es is ein Ros Dresdner Kammerchor/Hans-Christoph Rademann (Accentus)Oliver Geisler’s witty booklet note makes the case for Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) as “one of the best unknowns in the history of music.” Reading the... Read more... |