James Gilchrist

1SACD & 1CD

The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge under conductor Stephen Cleobury presents a compelling second release. Here it performs Mozart Requiem (Süssmayr edition), followed by complete movement realisations by leading composers and musicologists including Michael Finnissy, Robert D. Levin and Duncan Druce. The recording features a stellar line up of guest soloists – Elin Manahan Thomas, Christine Rice, James Gilchrist, Christopher Purves – and the Academy of Ancient Music.

The release also features a unique bonus audio documentary about Mozart’s Requiem, narrated by Elin Manahan Thomas (soprano soloist, who recently toured with Eric Whitacre), with commentary illustrated by extracts of both the Requiem and the works that inspired it.

The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge is one of the world’s foremost choirs and unquestionably among the most widely heard. It owes its existence to King Henry VI, who envisaged the daily singing of services in his magnificent chapel. This remains the Choir’s raison d’être, and is an important part of the lives of its 16 choristers, who are educated at King’s College School, and the 14 choral scholars and two organ scholars, who study a variety of subjects in the College. The Choir has been a breeding ground for numerous professional singers, two of whom – James Gilchrist and Christopher Purves – appear as soloists on this recording.

In 2013 it is exactly one hundred years ago that the English genius Benjamin Britten was born. Britten’s brilliant manner of writing for string orchestra, his unique treatment of text, and his rich repertory of musical colours are all abundantly clear from the masterpieces featured on this recording. Besides the excellent soprano Barbara Hannigan, who sparkles in ‘Les Illuminations’, tenor James Gilchrist and hornist Jasper de Waal deliver an impressive contribution to this production with Amsterdam Sinfonietta.

The orchestra herself indulges in all imaginable techniques, colours and dynamic extremes that Britten releases from his box of tricks for string orchestra. Amsterdam Sinfonietta is an ensemble of 22 gifted musicians from around the world. The group performs without conductor, under the direction of Candida Thompson, artistic director since 2003. The ensemble’s defining feature is the strong involvement and artistic drive of each individual member. The group has gained a reputation for its distinguished performances and innovative programming.

Amsterdam Sinfonietta collaborates with renowned artists and performs in major venues around throughout the world. In the last seasons the group toured Europe, China, the US and Australia.

Established in the 1670s, the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge is today one of the finest college choirs in the world, known and loved by millions for its recordings and concert tours. On this album, the Choir and St John’s Sinfonia, conducted by Andrew Nethsingha, perform works by Henry Purcell and Pelham Humfrey. They are joined by four soloists: Iestyn Davies, James Gilchrist, David Stout, and Neal Davies.

Humfrey was an English composer of the seventeenth century, known mainly for his verse anthems. Being well travelled, he produced works that in their vocal character show the influence of Italian music, and in the instrumental writing that of French music. That said, from these major foreign influences Humfrey forged a personal style that is uniquely English. Although as a composer he was generally forward-looking, his music also shows sub-elements of the English Golden Age of yesteryear. O Lord my God, for instance, is influenced by John Dowland’s celebrated Lachrimae Pavan of almost eighty years earlier.

In contrast, the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis were composed simply to be liturgically appropriate, with a text setting that is naturalistic and direct. Humfrey died at the age of twenty-seven, but even at this young age, he exerted a strong influence on his peers, including Henry Purcell, who as a young boy sang treble in Humfrey’s Chapel Royal Choir.

The works by Purcell recorded here range from works written when the composer was in his teenage years (Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei being a masterly example) to the crowning glory of the recording, O sing unto the Lord, which Purcell wrote when he was in his thirties, and compositionally on fire. At this stage of his career no other composer could touch him. Instruments and voices sing from the same hymn sheet, form and content are inseparable, past and present musical styles seamlessly intermingle, technique and virtuosity are indistinguishable from each other – and soloists and choir mesh together in a dazzling and life-affirming way.

The greatly sought-after tenor, James Gilchrist, continues his highly acclaimed exploration of British song with his new recording of Benjamin Britten works.

His 2010 recording of Leighton Earth, Sweet Earth…(laudes terrae) and Britten Winter Words was called ‘outstandingly accomplished’ by Gramophone.

‘On This Island’ is strikingly fresh and Gilchrist sings these beautiful poems with a graceful insight.

Contrasting this opening set, Gilchrist gives a moving and heartfelt performance of Britten’s dark and profound song cycle ‘The Holy Sonnets of John Donne’.

My Beloved is Mine ends with what Peter Pears called ‘Britten’s finest piece of vocal music to date’; a psalm-like poem with energetically evolving rhythms and beautiful harmonies.

James Gilchrist has appeared with many of the world’s prestigious ensembles and under several leading conductors; he recently performed with Retrospect Ensemble for their recording with Linn Records, J. S. Bach Easter & Ascension Oratorios.

James is sought after for operatic roles, ensemble performances and as a respected recitalist.

Anna Tilbrook is one of Britain's most exciting pianists, with a considerable reputation in song recitals and chamber music. She made her debut at Wigmore Hall in 1999 and has since become a regular performer at Europe’s major concert halls and festivals.

The Dunedin Consort’s highly anticipated new recording of ‘Esther - First Reconstructable Version (Cannons), 1720’ is the third recording in its hugely successful Handel series.

The Consort have set the bar high for this Handel performance with a Gramophone Award in 2007 for ‘Messiah’ and a BBC Radio 3 ‘Building a Library’ First Choice accolade for ‘Acis and Galatea’.

For Esther, director John Butt has reunited his award-winning team of soloists (Susan Hamilton - Esther; Nicholas Mulroy - Mordecai; Matthew Brook - Haman; Thomas Hobbs - 1st Israelite) plus well-known guest soloists Robin Blaze – Priest, James Gilchrist – Habdonah / Assuerus and Electra Lochhead - Israelite Boy.

The Dunedin Consort has established a reputation as the finest single-part period performance choir currently performing.

In 2011 Gramophone named the Dunedin Consort the 11th Greatest Choir in recognition of its ‘triple focus upon artistic revitalisation of over-familiar great works, meticulous musicological enquiry and the audiophile integrity of Linn Records' production values.’

The multi-award-winning Dunedin Consort has won praise for the natural style of its soloists (‘an authoritative bass and a superb contralto’ The Guardian) and renown for the virtuosity of its singers.

The Dunedin Consort has performed at music festivals in Scotland - including the Edinburgh International Festival and broadcasts frequently on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Scotland.

In their vivid new recording, The Bach Players introduce the music of Johann Pachelbel, a friend of the Bach family and 30 years older than Johann Sebastian. Each disc of this double CD presents cantatas with texts set by both Pachelbel and Bach: ‘Christ lag in Todesbanden’ and ‘Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan’. In the first case the older composer’s influence on Bach’s writing is very clear; in the second, we hear the mature Bach. A generous helping of Pachelbel’s music is given: the beautiful Canon and two of his sacred concertos. Bach is represented also by his cantata for solo alto, ‘Widerstehe doch der Sünde’, and the lesser known canons from the Goldberg Variations in an arrangement by the group’s keyboard player, Silas Wollston.

A 28-page booklet includes an essay on this music by the composer Hugh Wood and a note by Silas Wollston on his arrangement of the Goldberg canons. Texts of all the vocal pieces are given in German with English translations. There are photos of the recording session. The CDs and booklet are held in a packet made of card and without plastic.

Czech-born Jan Dismas Zelenka was by all accounts one of Baroque music’s trickier customers—fervently religious but completely lacking in courtly graces. Combine this with a tendency to throw out the rulebook when it came to harmonic convention and it’s hardly surprising that he was underappreciated in his lifetime. Yet here is some of the most pungently exciting writing of the Baroque, as individual as that of his near-contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach. The very opening of Zelenka’s Litaniae sets out his stall and Robert King and his eponymous Consort make the most of its startling qualities. But he is a composer to tug at the heartstrings too, nowhere more so than in the Salve regina, ravishingly sung by a young Carolyn Sampson.

Johann Kuhnau was one of life’s polymaths—as well as being a composer he trained as a lawyer, spoke several languages, helped found Leipzig’s opera house, theorized about music and even found time to write a novel sending up the shortcomings of the contemporary music scene. Musically he’s the link between Schütz and Bach, but he was alive to many different stylistic traits as this selection of sacred music demonstrates. From the brilliantly brassy opening of Ihr Himmel jubilirt to the restrained intensity of Tristis est anima mea, it’s music invigorated at every turn by The King’s Consort.

This album was recorded live at Cadogan Hall in 2009. It features internationally acclaimed singers, including Matthew Brook, Peter Harvey and Katharine Fuge. It is packaged in a hard back book similar to our other releases. It contains a 48 pages booklet with original notes by Richard Campbell (to whose memory the recording is dedicated), and texts in German, English and French.

The live concert was billed “Six funerals and a wedding”: the pieces evoke the dark theme of grief, as was fashionable in 17th century Lutheran Germany; though the last track “Meine Freundin” is a lighter amorous dialogue The music on this album is in turn dark, poignant, humane and witty It features choral music (motets) as well as solo arias and laments, and two dialogues Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703) - not to be confused with Johann Christian Bach, was Johann Sebastian Bach’s older cousin. A respected composer in his lifetime, he greatly influenced JS Bach’s music making.

Continuing the series ‘Bach’s Contemporaries’, this volume concentrates on the wonderful music of Johann Schelle—a cousin of Kuhnau (another composer featured in this series).

This immensely striking sacred music by Schelle (one of Bach’s predecessors in the post of Kantor in Leipzig’s famous Thomas Church) brings together a top-flight group of soloists and a large and colourful assembly of instrumentalists, and presents remarkable and splendidly varied music which not only stands up proudly in its own musical right, but also greatly enhances our understanding of Bach’s own sacred writing.