It has been a long time since phantomchoralsnake performed his blogging duties, so apologies for the delay (holidays, a generally busy schedule and all sorts of other feeble excuses). It will soon be time for the next quarterly review of recordings, but here's the batch worth checking out from Gramophone Magazine reviews between April and June this year.
To tell you the truth April wasn't actually that exciting so I've chosen one recording from May and two from June to make up for it.
May:
Vasks Plainscapes performed by the Latvian Radio Choir on Ondine. This is a marvellous selection of Vasks' a capella output written from 1978 to 2008. You should know by now how much I love Baltic music in general, but this recording is sublime, shimmering, spiritual, soothing, soaring and a bucketload of other s's big enough to keep any snake happy.
June:
Schnittke Penitential Psalms performed by the SWR Vokalensemble, Stuttgart (no, I'd never heard of them before either) on Hanssler Classic. Written in 1988 to mark the 1,000 year anniversary of Russia's Christianisation this is an interesting take on Russian Orthodox and Gregorian chant traditions. If you know some of Schnittke's more radical works, and you're worrying that this might be equally difficult to approach (although personally I like some of Schnittke's way out stuff quite a lot), don't panic, as this is very accessible, but with an interesting edge to it.
Chilcott Requiem performed by the Wells Cathedral Choir on Hyperion. Something firmly smack bang in the middle of the British choral tradition for those of you who feel more comfortable with that sort of thing. The music is mostly gentle and reflective in tone (no Verdian hystrionics here, more of a Faure Requiem part II) and this popular British contemporary composer has managed to come up with enough innovation and original input to distinguish his Requiem from its many predecessors and make repeated listening an enticing prospect.
That's it for now. Back again soon, I promise.
