Editor’s Choice, Vocal & Choral – November 2015 “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded survived” – the old schoolroom rhyme is still a good way of recalling the fate of the six colourful women who married Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn, the second wife and the first to get the chop (literally) had quite an interesting life before she came to Henry’s attention. As a maid of honour to Margaret of Austria, a great musical patron, then in the French court of Henry’s sister, Mary and later in that of her stepdaughter, Queen Claude, Anne would have been exposed to a wide variety of musical styles, as well as being given ample opportunity to develop her own musical talents. All the more intriguing then, is a music book kept in London’s Royal College of Music that bears her name. It contains 42 works, both sacred and secular, by a variety of composers. Some are smaller works destined for domestic or devotional settings, while others are grander, liturgical works. David Skinner and his vocal consort (named after the Tudor singer, composer, music copyist… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

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Here are our shortlists of the 25 albums of 2015 rated most highly by our critics. But which will come out on top?

★★★★½ Robertson’s ‘from the heart’ Mass returns to the heart indeed. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Rush, Russell Beale, Salminen & Skovhus: four Lears on tackling Shakespeare’s tortured monarch. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The SSO’s chief explains why he’s taken his time before conducting the music Beethoven never heard. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

There is something special about the blend of voices among family members – witness the Everlys or the McGarrigals in the pop world  – but there are few instances that exist in the field of classical music. German father and son team Christoph and Julian Prégardien, however, are two exceptional tenors in their own right and have been performing duets over recent years. Now they have taken their popular recitals with pianist Michael Gees into the studio for the Dutch label Challenge Classics. The result, Father and Son, is an entertaining collection of curiosities and rearrangements of what some may consider to be sacred cows. The arrangements, mostly by Julian Prégardien and Gees, include 12 Schubert songs and were the product of rehearsals followed by in-the-moment improvisations, much like you would hear in a folk club. This, they argue, is in the spirit of contemporary accounts of the original Schubertiade evenings. The Goethe setting Der Erlkönig divides logically into the two roles of the night-riding father and the son who dies in his arms. Other songs sit less comfortably as duets, for this listener at least, although the Prégardiens and Gees perform them all impeccably. Two little-known German composers are…

A wonderful mixture of power, passion, beauty and expressive intensity, the distinguished Bulgarian-born bass, Nicolai Ghiaurov was a fine exponent of many aspects of opera and song, not least the Italian and French schools. He and his second wife, the great Mirella Freni, made a formidable operatic duo. Now dead for over a decade it is timely that Decca honour Ghiaurov with this generous and varied survey of his work in the field of Russian music. In the operatic realm, we have a selection of important arias sung with the London Symphony under Sir Edward Downes. Ghiaurov presents impressive characterisations in roles from Eugene Onegin, Prince Igor and most notably Boris Godunov, for which he became particularly famous. A selection of songs by Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Glinka, Rubinstein, and the now-forgotten Dargomyzhsky, shows the singer to be capable of great warmth and intimacy, especially in favourites such as None but the Lonely Heart and Rubinstein’s Melody. Ten folksongs performed with the Kavel Orchestra and Chorus under Atanas Margaritov are a welcome reminder of the other side of Russian music which Ghiaurov obviously enjoyed. The lusty singing of the male chorus… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

This offering of Tallis’s motets reflects the changing demands on composers during the English Reformation. Henry VIII’s spurning of Catholicism in 1534, along with the taste of the early Reformation leader Thomas Cranmer, had a handsome effect on the composition of sacred vocal music. A syllabic, non-melismatic approach to word-setting was favoured – a trend reflected here in the blazing Mass for Four Voices. This music is full of striking harmonic effects; false relations abound! The spidery conclusion of In Manus Tuas, Domine is deftly handled: artful elegance applied to such dissonances gives the ear time to absorb the harmonic logic. Occasional intonation slips are just noticeable: a sharp soprano in the opening notes of Wipe Away My Sins, reaffirms her sharp inclinations in the otherwise sublime Miserere Nostri. The Cardinall’s Musick takes a rather reserved approach to the music, utterly appropriate to the style. Well-judged, vigorous singing flares up in the Gloria from the Mass for Four Voices. In that work, incredibly stellar chordal writing is intelligently balanced: a clear hierarchy in chordal notes is reflected in the tuning and volume of each note. As though a… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already…

Kenneth Leighton came to prominence in the 1960s with a unique musical language that suited the times. His output had a ‘mod’ feel: edgy harmonies and propulsive rhythms seemed to proclaim a bold, new outlook that challenged both the musical and ecclesiastical status quo. Looking deeper we discover that Leighton’s music was anchored by a fair weight of musical history. Five years as a boy chorister at Wakefield Cathedral imbued him with a love of the Anglican tradition, whilst his later experience as a student of strict counterpoint, under the stern eye of his teacher Petrassi, ensured he knew what rules he was breaking. Stephen Layton and the Trinity choir have done a magnificent job in bringing out all the colour and drama of this selection of Leighton’s church music. Much of the disc has been recorded at Lincoln Cathedral where the weight of the organ adds to the intensity of the performances, even if it means some detail is blurred. Crucifixus Pro Nobis is splendidly realised with superb attention to the text by Patrick Carey and Phineas Fletcher. Tenor Andrew Kennedy wrings all the pathos from the score… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

Editor’s Choice, Vocal & Choral – August 2015 When one considers Franz Liszt’s rapacious appetite for poetic stimulation, the exalted literary circles in which he moved and his inexhaustible creative drive, it should come as no surprise that he composed over 70 songs, although only a handful will be familiar to most lieder-philes. That may change thanks to this third volume of Hyperion’s latest project in the label’s seeming aim to record the entire art-song repertoire and the bringing on board of Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley will broaden its appeal. The album spans some 50 years of Liszt’s career and demonstrates his wide ranging polyglot tastes and searching intellectual curiosity for source material. His harmonic and formal invention can veer from the exploratory to the mundane, but when taken on its own terms and delivered with this level of dramatic intensity it makes for a haunting 75 minutes. Finley takes these songs by the scruff of the neck and gives them all the dramatic gesture and flair he can muster. The Petrarch Sonnets are here, but heard in the substantially revised second edition for low voice, their austere… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already…

The Song Company’s ex-pat director is planning Bach, birdsong and Billie Holiday for 2016. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in