Christmas is approaching fast, and if you're wondering what to buy a music-lover this year you could do a lot worse than this bunch of stocking fillers. As usual I've selected one recording from each issue of Gramophone magazine, which makes four in total this quarter because of the additional 'Awards' edition of the magazine.
Actually I'm lying, it makes six in total as I've bunged in a couple of proper Christmas recordings of carols old and new as a bonus.
Awards edition:
Barber (An American Romantic) performed by Conspirare and Company of Voices on Harmonia Mundi. Including the inevitable but ever-beautiful Adagio in its choral arrangement Agnus Dei, but much more too. Barber was a lot more than a one-trick pony and his choice of texts combined with a wide variety of musical styles always provides interest.
October:
Graupner's The Seven Words of Christ on the Cross performed by Les Idees Heureuses on Analekta. No, I'd never heard of him either. This is Christoph Graupner by the way, a contemporary of J.S. Bach who was equally prolific but didn't leave a vast number of offspring or students to safeguard his legacy, rather than the later composer Gottlieb Graupner who travelled to America and in his attempts to popularise Negro songs apparently took to blacking himself up and introducing himself as 'The gay Negro boy'! I digress. This is obviously serious and heartfelt music and Graupner seems to be a composer well worth getting to know better.
November:
Nordic Sounds 2 performed by the Swedish Radio Choir on Channel Classics features a range of more contemporary, but almost as obscure composers - I'd only heard of a couple of them before and I'm a big fan of Baltic and Scandinavian choral music in general. Anyway, it certainly doesn't disappoint with some wonderfully virtuosic singing and a range of styles from rugged folk to ethereal spirituality. Definitely one for my stocking.
December:
Pater noster (a choral reflection on the Lord's Prayer) performed by the King's Singers on Naxos. A beautifully sung collection selected from over 6 centuries of Christian church music, and a bargain to boot! Some surprises too from composers such as Stravinsky and Poulenc.
And those bonus carol recordings:
The old (going way back to the 15th century) is Deo Gracias Anglia (Medieval English Carols from the Trinity Carol Roll), performed by Alamire on Obsidian, while the new (featuring contemporary and 20th century composers) is This Christmas Night performed by locals in the form of the Choir of Worcester College Oxford on Resonus. Both well worth listening to in very different ways.
To tell you the truth I could easily have chosen several other recordings from December which featured a whole host of worthwhile pieces including a Deutsche Messe by Mendelssohn (but this time Arnold, rather than his better known cousin Felix), a beautiful Requiem by Gabriel Jackson, patriotic splendour from Parry courtesy of the BBC National Chorus, and a rather oddly timed release of La Fiesta de Pascua en Piazza Navona which recreates a 16th century Roman Easter procession! What a wonderful and wide-ranging bunch.
Have a very Happy Christmas and hopefully phantomchoralsnake will return early in the New Year, probably a few pounds heavier. Have you ever seen a snake eat a turkey whole? It's not as easy as it looks, all of that jaw dislocation lark, and you have to avoid sneezing, which isn't easy with that many feathers going past your nose.
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