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NCC immediately responsive to Stephen Layton’s command of detail and dramatic design
Stephen Layton is one of those conductors who achieves much by doing little, or so it seemed here. In this demanding programme it was revealing that the choir’s relaxed confidence was not affected by some unwelcome intrusions of sound from without and within the hall. For a 17 voice group to sing James Macmillan’...
Triodion is the longest of eight works on this disc, and comprises three odes leading to a simple coda. Everything is pared down to the minimum here and the music always seems to have time to linger. Only the most pure and precise of choral groups can raise Arvo Part’s work to its optimum level of expression. Polyphony and its conductor Stephen Layton make ideal interpreters. This their second...
With six world premiere recordings to its credit, this disc would immediately attract attention even if the performances were not of the exceptional quality that they are here. Harmonic simplicity and the clear delivery of words are Part’s concerns in these works, united to haunting effect in the album’s solemn title track, Triodion. Stephen Layton and Polyphony clearly captured the Estonian...
There’s a quiet and cumulative power to these works, given performances of luminous purity by Polyphony and Stephen Layton.
‘There’s a line in this disc’s title track, from an Orthodox ode addressed to Saint Nicholas: “therewithal hast thou acquired: by humility – greatness, by poverty – riches.” This might have been written about Arvo Pärt’s compositional technique, here liberated from the...
Polyphony’s earlier album devoted to the a cappella choral music of the Estonian cult composer featured pieces written between 1988 and 1991. This new release comprises works, some recorded here for the first time, of more recent provenance (1996-2002) Of the eight pieces, two are settings of the traditional Latin liturgy, Nunc Dimittis (2001) and Salve Regina (2002) but we also find the “Holy...
Neues von Arvo Pärt, dem aus Estland stammenden, jetzt 68jährigen Repräsentanten einer kreativ auf minimalistisch-harmonischen Klangstrukturen basierenden Moderne. Alle hier im Januar des Jahres 2003 produzierten Beiträge sind zwischen 1996 und 2002 komponiert worden. Sie gehören ausnahmslos zur Gattung geistlicher, liturgisch ungebundener Vokalmusik. In dieser Eigenschaft konfrontiert das...