Yes, I know it's only the first week of August, but the September edition of Gramophone magazine is out already, and my reviews will be based on highlighting interesting new choral recordings from their reviews section, so September it is. This will hopefully become a regular quarterly review, but for the first one you get an extra month bunged in free of charge!
June - Sandstrom Nordic Sounds, Swedish Radio Choir on Channel Classics. A cappella Swedish contemporary choral music. Generally quite melodic and nothing too scary for sensitive souls who normally steer well clear of anything contemporary, but apparently a bit of a nightmare to sing. You can listen to the whole CD on the Spotify website.
July - Jonathan Harvey The Angels, Ashes Dance Back etc., Latvian Radio Choir on Hyperion. More contemporary music, from a British composer this time. Interesting use of electronics and a range of other less common instruments. Slightly less accessible than the Sondstrom, but veering towards ethereally uplifting at times. Unless you're in a top quality choir this is probably another one to just listen to rather than perform. Hear excerpts on the Hyperion website.
August - Gounod Requiem & Messe Chorale, Ensemble Vocale de Lausanne on Mirare. Lashings of lush Romanticism for you to get your teeth into after two portions of slightly austere contemporary music. The Requiem is the main work here and it's the one he wrote in 1893 (apparently he wrote four requiems in total). Sounds like a good work for a large choir to get stuck into, and almost as good as his wonderful St. Cecilia Mass. You can listen to another recording of this work (by Choeur de Chambre Romand) on the Spotify website, but unfortunately there seem to be nothing available online beyond 30 second excerpts on Amazon when it comes to this recording.
September - Grandi Vespro della Beata Vergine, Bach Collegium Stuttgart on Carus. No, I'd never heard of him either. Allessandro Grandi in case you were wondering, early 17th Century Venetian composer, and for several years Monteverdi's deputy at St. Marks so you know where this work is coming from. You won't find this 'Vespers' listed as a work elsewhere as it's basically a number of seperate shorter pieces pulled together solely for this CD. You might well argue that Moteverdi's Vespers is the greater work, but Grandi wasn't far off that level, and ths live recording is, to quote Gramophone, "flawless". Sounds like a good sing too so lets hope it catches on. Hear excerpts on the Carus website.
Of course you probably want to rush out and buy a copy of all these recordings now you've heard about them. If you live in Oxford then your best bet is Blackwell's Music Shop in Broad Street, your local classical music experts.
That's it for this review. The next one should be in November including all of those lovely Christmas releases.
