Issued last September but only recently brushing my radar, Pygmalion’s alpha-plus Bach disc is a revelation. Raphaël Pichon, founder of the specialist Baroque ensemble in 2006, has had a rewarding…
Author: David Truslove
Pelham Humfrey – Sacred Choral Music
Until just recently the church music of Pelham Humfrey (1647/8-74) was represented on disc with just two dedicated recordings: one from 1992 with the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge (Nicholas…
Soli Deo Gloria: Philippe Pierlot directs the Ricercar Consort and Collegium Vocale in Bach’s cantatas
Under the direction of Belgian viola da gamba player Philippe Pierlot, the Ricercar Consort continue their exploration of J.S. Bach’s sacred cantatas – an intermittent project over the last twenty…
John Sheppard’s Media vita: The Choir of New College, Oxford
Modern scholarship directed at the English Reformation composer John Sheppard (c.1515-58) has come a long way since Peter le Huray’s research during the 1960s and David Wulstan’s pioneering performances a…
Choir of Keble College, Oxford: Ave Rex Angelorum
Ancient plainchant, medieval texts and numinous harmonies form a unifying thread for this uplifting recent disc from the Choir of Keble College Oxford recorded in the warm acoustic of Buckfast…
Pagliacci: The Grange Festival
If theatre in general, and verismo opera in particular, is based on the tension between pretence and reality, art and life, this performance of Pagliacci at The Grange in leafy…
Simon Mold: Song Cycles
As an ex-chorister of Peterborough Cathedral and varied involvement as a lay-clerk, Simon Mold has enjoyed working within the centuries-old church music tradition, affording him valuable encounters with some of…
Britten: A Ceremony of Carols – Choir of Clare College, Cambridge
It’s a bold director who decides to explore Benjamin Britten’s smaller and relatively minor choral repertoire alongside the seldom recorded SATB version of A Ceremony of Carols. As the booklet…
Bruckner Mass in E minor & Te Deum: Collegium Vocale Gent
Philippe Herreweghe, Collegium Vocale Gent and the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées bring together two sides of Anton Bruckner’s deep-rooted spirituality. Whether expressed through the rich polyphony of the Mass in E…