Choral The Dead in the Square: Allan Pettersson's Twelfth Symphony If you like Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms, Orff Carmina Burana, the Nordic symphonists in general or Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony, 'Babi Yar,' and perhaps even Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, you'll most likely love this
Choral Celebrating Josquin's 500th A celebration of the Mother Mary, Decca's The Golden Renaissance offers a simply gorgeous - and vocally flawless - experience
Choral Vox Clara: Late Medieval Chant Although in one sense a Christmas disc (many of the texts sing about related subjects), it would be churlish to exclude this lovely disc on the basis we're now in January. Imagining the sounds of medieval Riga, and dispelling any sense of stuffy, voice-bound-to-text performance practice, this is
Choral Parry's Songs of Farewell from Westminster As we say goodbye to 2020, it seems only right to bring in the Songs of Farewell by Hubert Parry in this wonderful release from the Choir of Westminster Abbey and James O'Donnell. I well remember attending the recording sessions for this disc, held at All Hallows, Gospel
Christmas Puer natus est ... The Choir of Buckfast Abbey One of the most beautifully produced of Christmas discs to have come Classical Explorer's way this year, this is a disc full of surprises. Buckfast Abbey founded their own record label, Ad Fontes: memorable previous releases have included Messe da Pacem (music by Pierre Villette, Yves Castagnet and
Christmas A Winter's Night: Christmas music for Choir and Organ Released back in August 2020, when snow and the suchlike were the last things on anyone's mind, this Signum release brings together the time-honoured combo of choir, brass and organ. And what brass! Onyx Brass is a motley selection of principal brass players from major orchestras that positively
Christmas Yulefest! Christmas from King's, Cambridge Five years since its release, Yulefest! remains one of the finest Christmas discs out there
Baroque Revelatory Legrenzi: 'Compiete,' Op. 7 This is one of the most significant Baroque releases I have come across this year
Baroque An Oratorio for Christmas: Bach's Weihnachts-Oratorium The Christmas Oratorio is a piece like no other
Handel Der Messias: Handel's Messiah in Mozart's version, staged ... the adventurous need not hesitate
Christmas Be All Merry: Christmas Music from Dublin 'Tis the season ... and, despite the live music ravages of CoVID, there is a Christmas feast of music in 2020, both on disc and online. For the latter, the VOCES8 Live from London - Christmas Festival [https://voces8.foundation/events1/2020/12/1/live-from-london-christmas] is surely without rival: we
Christmas Christmas in Puebla A panoramic exploration of Mexico forms the basis of this fascinating disc from the group Siglo de Oro under Patrick Allies. The title refers to a place in Mexico, Puebla de los Ángeles, and the music celebrates the music of one Juan Gutierrez de Padilla (1590-1664), whose music makes up
Christmas Britten's Christmas Music: St Nicolas and A Ceremony of Carols A celebration of Britten's choral mastery at Christmas
Choral Music of Duarte Lobo with Los Cupertinos Beauty is beauty is beauty; and this is full 70 minutes of it
Choral All Things are Quite Silent: Choral Delights from Pembroke Anna Lapwood is clearly quite a musician. Most recently, her appraisal of David Goode's complete Bach organ works on Signum for BBC Radio 3 was a tour de force of in-depth knowledge, clarity of thought and sound judgement. Here she is, also on Signum, with her choruses (Pembroke
Renaissance A Tale of Two Josquins In November 2019, Gimell released the eighth and penultimate in their series of Josquin Masses, a coupling of Josquin des Prés' Missa Mater Patris along with Noel Bauldeweyn's Missa Da pacem (a work long thought to have been by Josquin): For those of us of a certain
Sibelius Sibelius Kullervo from BIS Experience the power and integrity of Sibelius' Kullervo, a work of huge ambition
Early Music Silvio & Dorinda: Madrigali amorosi by d'India, Marenzio and Monteverdi Encased in the shell of an hour is some of the most glorious vocal music there is
Choral After Silence: VOCES8 After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music (Aldous Huxley)
Choral Finding Harmony: The King's Singers travel the World Healing the World is ambitious, but maybe what is needed right now. The idea of this disc, released in January 2020, is to bring people together. Here we have music that spans around 800 years with a special focus on music composed under oppression or musical reactions to events from
