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Pärt: Triodion (CD Review - The Daily Telegraph, 2003)
This collection, a sequel to Polyphony’s all-Pärt CD for Hyperion, brings together choral music composed from 1996 to 2002. The period marked a widening of the range of languages Pärt set, and also a warming of his tonal colouring, compared with the cooler, sparer sound-world of his classic Latin settings, such as the St John Passion. Several of the works were British ecclesiastical commissions an
Britten: Sacred and Profane (CD Review - The Evening Standard, 2001)
After hearing their latest CD of choral works by Britten, nothing will dissuade me from the conclusion that Polyphony under Stephen Layton is the best chamber choir in the country. Listen to the pinpoint articulation in I mon waxe wood from the collection Sacred and Profane Op91. The high sopranos are lithe, strong and young. They rattle out the semiquavers even at altitude with precision and clar
Bach: Christmas Oratorio (CD Review - Sinfini Music, 2013)
Bach’s Christmas Oratorio started life as a set of related cantatas, conceived for performance on the six church feasts between Christmas Day and Epiphany. The composer recycled several earlier works - secular pieces for the Elector of Saxony and his family among them - to create a compelling mix of choral numbers, recitatives and arias which collectively tell the Nativity story and meditate on it
Bach: Christmas Oratorio (CD Review - Music Web International, 2013)
Earlier this year I was very taken with Stephen Layton’s recording of Bach’s St John Passion (review). That recording was made with his other choir, Polyphony, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Now Layton has recorded another of Bach’s great choral works, the Christmas Oratorio. I fancy this new recording, though set down in Cambridge, is linked to Layton’s work as director of the an
Bach: St John Passion (CD Review - Audiophile Audition, 2013)
To recap: there are five extent “versions” of Bach’s St. John Passion. I say this because today’s listening audience doesn’t always get what’s on the inside of the recording package by reading what is on the outside. To complicate things, the version that Layton has chosen follows the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, a respected edition that offers plausible solutions to the problem of this multi-sourced work,
Bach: St John Passion (CD Review - Gramophone Magazine, 2013)
Stephen Layton’s outstanding new St John is about as state-of-the-art a Bach Passion recording as you’ll hear. For all its referencing various traditions, the overall signposting is pitched in the ‘middle of the road’ (and I mean that simply as one likely to satisfy as broad church as any available recording) and yet it appears remarkably fresh-sounding. Take as read the urgency, clarity, balance