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Bach: St John Passion (CD Review - SINFINIMUSIC.com, 2013)
sinfinimusic.com Andrew Stewart listens to Stephen Layton and Polyphony's recording of Bach's St John Passion and finds a true believer's response to the music and story 5***** There are times when performers are collectively caught by great music like a deer in headlights. Stephen Layton and his colleagues soar high above the trap set for over-reverent interpreters, those who dwell too deeply on
Bach: St John Passion (CD Review - The Daily Telegraph, 2013)
5 Stars On Good Friday at London’s St John’s Smith Square, Stephen Layton will conduct Polyphony and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Bach’s St John Passion. These Polyphony performances of the masterworks marking the church’s major festivals have become a key constituent of the concert calendar, but this is the first time that the choir has committed an extended Bach work to disc. It
Bach: St John Passion (CD Review - The Observer, 2013)
Conductor Stephen Layton, top soloists, the expert choir of Polyphony and the incomparable Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment perform the St John Passion annually at St John’s Smith Square. It’s always a sell-out. Bach revised the work several times. Layton has honed his preferred version, but only aficionados will notice or mind. Concentrate instead on the purity of sound, the emotionally expr
Bach: St John Passion (CD Review - Presto Classical, 2013)
I seem to spend a lot of time in these newsletters enthusing about new discoveries, revived rarities or fresh perspectives on well-known repertoire but today I’m going to evangelise (pun intended) about a very straightforward recording of a very familiar work. This new St John Passion from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Polyphony doesn’t use a new or unfamiliar version of the score;
Esenvalds: Passion and Resurrection & Other Choral Works (CD Review - American R
Hyperion has done it again, with this stunning album of mostly sacred choral works by the younger-generation Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds, perfectly performed by Stephen Layton’s ever-welcome Polyphony and Carolyn Sampson, one of our finest sopranos— supported by the strings of the Britten Sinfonia. Layton, like many of his top-tier colleagues, can’t resist the remarkable flood of new music fr
Esenvalds: Passion and Resurrection & Other Choral Works (CD Review - dailyclass
'When composing a work, I give myself to the temptation of the creative work -- a journey, whose twisting roads persistently, but convincingly, bring me to the final sounds of the score. 'Only then do I exhale,' says Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds (born 1977 at Priekule) whose orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal and piano works have been performed in Europe and the USA. Esenvalds will spend two y