Lôbo & Cardoso - Portuguese Requiem Masses - Schola Cantorum of Oxford, Jeremy Summerly (1992) {Naxos 8.550682}
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© 1992 HNH Int. / Naxos | 8.550682
Classical / Renaissance / Baroque / Choral / Sacred / Masses

Jeremy Summerly and his Oxford Schola Cantorum is beautifully paced and the calibre of the singing itself is very impressive indeed, as is the Naxos recording. …the singing is unique: forthright, direct, fresh, recorded quite ‘tight’ and making this 17th-century music as emotive as possible.

Mozarts Requiem may have been written under strange circumstances in the final months of the composers life, but the work itself it is timeless. Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus give a powerful and poignant performance of Mozarts masterpiece with an impressive group of solo singers, in a concert recorded live in Munich in May 2017.

Douglas Knehans (b.1957) - Lux Dei: New Works for Choir - CCM Chorale, Brett Scott (2015) {Ablaze Records ar-00021}
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© 2015 Ablaze Records | ar-00021
Classical / Modern Classical / Choral / Sacred / Post-Modern

The works included on this disc traverse an almost 25 year span of interest in writing for large vocal forces. Some of my largest works have been for choir—such as my St. Luke Magnificat or my Shoah Requiem—but on this disc the works, apart from my Missa Brevis, are for a cappella choir. Writing for a cappella choir is a very inspiring medium coupled, as it is, with text and language and the inherent timbral interest of varied vowel and percussive consonant sounds in the voice. The works, apart from Silence from my Two Looks at Silence, are all in Latin and owe more than a little to my background as a Catholic and Catholocism's traditional sacred liturgical literature. —Douglas Knehans.

LSD: Love, Sensuality and Devotion gathers over a decade's worth of Enigma's definitive tracks, including the song that started it all, "Sadeness, Pt. 1." "Return to Innocence," "Beyond the Invisible," and "Cross of Changes" are all featured as well, and though the collection ranges from the rock-tinged "I'll Love You…I'll Kill You" to atmospheric, electronic fare like "Shadows in Silence," since it's all essentially Michael Crétu's vision, it flows surprisingly well. Since Enigma's sound has varied fairly drastically over the years, LSD: Love, Sensuality and Devotion is the perfect starting point for anyone curious about Crétu's music, and the only Enigma album that casual fans might need.

This 2016 release followed on an immensely successful 2014 performance of the Fauré Requiem, Op. 48, and in many ways it's a partner to the earlier recording. The Fauré had a historical-performance aspect, re-creating the 1889 premiere even down to the specific organ stops used. In this case, historical performance is not involved: the version of the Duruflé Requiem performed is not the original, but a 1961 revision for mezzo-soprano, chorus, organ, and chamber orchestra. But the forces bring the music close to the overall effect of the Fauré, with boy sopranos of the Choir of King's College connecting the two performances. In both recordings, the organ is brought to the foreground and issues almost electronic-like sounds that shoot beams of mystic light through the small Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. It's gorgeous, and it might easily result in a revival for this version of the work. Conductor Stephen Cleobury does wonderfully with his mezzo-soprano soloist: for sampling, you could luxuriate in the "Pie Jesu," with its restrained instrumental backing making the music less operatic and more cantata-like. You also get a pair of little-known Duruflé works, the Quatre Motets sur des thèmes Grégoriens, Op. 10, and the Messe "Cum jubilo," Op. 11, with chorus, organ, and one soloist; each of these could challenge the conception of Duruflé as a one-hit wonder. Yet the biggest news here is the Duruflé Requiem itself, and the way the work retains its slightly otherworldly quality in this intimate version.

Olivier Vernet studied organ with Gaston Litaize at the Conservatoire National de Région in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, where he earned his concert diploma with honors. At the Conservatoire National de Région in Rueil Malmaison, he studied with Marie-Claire Alain, and continued his studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris with Michel Chapuis.

Tómas Luis de Victoria (1548–1611) - Sacred Works - Ensemble Plus Ultra, Michael Noone (2011) {10CD Set Deutsche Grammophon}
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© 2011 Deutsche Grammophon / ARCHIV Produktion | 0289 477 9747
Classical / Renaissance / Choral

Although the large box and the Sacred Works title might lead you to expect a complete collection of Tomás Luis de Victoria's sacred music, that's not what it is, and in fact some famous pieces, such as the Requiem in six parts, are not included. Instead, conductor Michael Noone lists the criteria for inclusion as follows: the collection focuses on works Victoria composed in Madrid, works that are preserved in manuscripts, works or versions of works that have never been recorded, and works involving an organ or winds, or written in sections that alternate with chant.

Continuing their forays through the less well-known parts of the Renaissance repertory, The Sound and the Fury now give us almost the entire known works of Firminus Caron (active in the 1460s and ’70s) – lacking only a dozen or so secular pieces. The top line is taken throughout by the peerless David Erler, a man who seems unable to produce an inelegant line or a less than lovely sound.

John Dunstaple (c. 1390-1453) - Musician to the Plantagenets - Orlando Consort (1995) {Metronome METCD1009}
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© 1995 Metronome Recordings | METCD1009
Classical / Medieval / Early Renaissance / Polyphony / Choral

John Dunstaple was one of the most celebrated composers of the medieval period. Tantalisingly little is known about him, and what little is known is tantalising. He served in the courts of the family of Henry V and two pieces here were performed in Canterbury Cathedral to celebrate Henry V's victory at Agincourt. The booklet includes illustrations from the only known surviving Dunstaple autograph manuscript, an astronomical treatise in Emmanuel College library. "A treasure trove of unfamiliar and little heard masterpieces, this imaginative record is a model of what can be achieved when scholars and performers genuinely collaborate"

With no slight intended to the other great recordings of the Missa Solemnis in the world, there's this one and then there are all the rest. Truly. Even with the 1940 Toscanini and the 1974 Böhm, this 1965 recording of Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus embodies everything that's great about the Missa Solemnis.

Since 1979 Dominique Vellard has been the inspirational driving force behind the Ensemble Gilles Binchois : more than 35 years of research and performance that have led to the creation of some of the essential recordings, especially of music from the medieval and Renaissance periods. An outstanding catalogue of recordings devoted to the music of Machaut, the Notre-Dame School, the Burgundian repertoire, early french polyphony or the spanish Renaissance, on labels such as Virgin Classics, Harmonic Records, Ambroisie, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Glossa y Aparté, have met public, critical and musicological acclaim. The Ensemble Gilles Binchois performs regularly mostrly across Europe, but also in Morocco, India, Malaysia USA and South America.

Manuel Cardoso (1566–1650) was one of the most important composers of the golden age of Portuguese polyphony around the turn of the seventeenth century. But modern choirs have been surprisingly slow to explore the rich legacy of his compositions: this is the first recording of his Missa Secundi Toni, and the first of any of his works with brass consort, its dark colours providing an effective contrast with the young voices of the Girton College Choir.

Mate saule is Mother Sun – and Peteris Vasks worships her. Any meeting or interview with the Latvian composer is likely to end up with a tramp through the forests or a swim in the Baltic. And much of Vasks’s music is a meditation on the eternal attributes of Nature, in a continuum of life which stretches beyond the fever and the fret of his own fast-changing world. Mate saule is an early choral work, its voices oscillating like the shimmer of a sun slowly rising from the horizon, and lit by flares and fragments of chant. Vasks’s choral music has tended to be instrumental in texture, focusing on the overall mood rather than the specific verbal activity of any text he is setting. The ‘white diatonicism’ of Mate saule gives way to more disturbed, aleatoric harmonies and more disruptive textures as political change and human turmoil take centre stage in the late Eighties in Zemgale, a song about the anguished dilemmas of exile. This is a subject at the very core of the work of the Polish-Lithuanian writer Czeslaw Milosz (now resident in the USA); and the three poems set by Vasks in 1994 receive their world premiere recording. They were originally written for the Hilliard Ensemble: here the excellent Latvian Radio Choir works with concentrated focus on the spare harmonies and elusive metres which recreate the wonder of three transient moments out of time.

It's not as bad as it might be, but still, except as a memento of the occasion, there really isn't much reason for Eugene Ormandy's 1967 recording of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis to have been reissued. Columbia's stereo sound was distant and a little tubby and Sony's digital remastering is a little closer but still tubby. The singing is okay but nothing special: Arroyo's is probably the best, but Forrester, and especially Siepi, were showing their vocal age by 1967.

Following the discovery of the Americas, Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church was established with incredible speed. Many of the Native Indians were part of highly sophisticated civilizations, most notably the Aztecs and the Incas, and were very responsive to the new ideas, especially music, which was already an important social and spiritual element in their lives.