Reviews
Review Search
'Sensitive, beautifully blended singing and playing. First class'
The music of the contemporary English composer John Rutter has gained a measure of popularity, and this disc amply illustrated why. Many listeners instinctively shy away from 20th century music, although the work of the trendy minimalists (Pärt, Gorécki et al) has built an audience for new music, and Rutter's work can be added to the list of 'safe ground' for wary collectors. It's tuneful and...
The timbral and textural palette of Russian choral sound is clearly evident to Layton and the ensemble with Tchaikovsky’s setting of Blessed are they whom Thou hast chosen, the octave doublings of melodic passages and eight-part writing sustained with clarity and a lovely feeling for phrase. Of greatest interest, however, is Knut Nystedt's stunningly simple Immortal Bach … Under Stephen Layton’s...
The most interesting discovery to be made on this anthology is Sviridov's choral music, both sacred (though disguised as incidental music for a play under the Soviet regime) and profane (a lovely Blok cycle). A Russian nineteenth-century ancestry is audible in his work, and he is clearly following in the footsteps of Rachmaninov, with a splendid sureness of technique. James Bowman's voice (...
Uniformly charismatic performances. Fine engineering and notes too. Highly recommended.
Take a couple of dozen choice 20th-century Christmas carols, group them imaginatively add a dash of plainchant, and you have a winning recipe. This is what Stephen Layton and his choir Polyphony did for a recent recording, and they brought the programme to St John's Smith Square last week.
Few of the pieces included could be counted as predictable chestnuts. Indeed, each was, in its own way, a...