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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Advent at Merton
The beginning of Advent is celebrated with a particular solemnity at Merton. For its second recording the college choir explores the musical riches that adorn this most special time in the church’s year, centring on a newly commissioned sequence of Magnificat antiphons from seven leading composers. Founded in 2008, the new Choir of Merton College, Oxford is led by newly appointed Organist and full-time Director of Music Benjamin Nicholas, and Reed Rubin Director of Music Peter Philips. The choir is rapidly emerging as a major force in collegiate choral music. The disc is recorded in the beautiful environs of Merton College Chapel, which has stood at the heart of the College as a place of worship for almost 750 years. “The fresh, well-blended voices show vitality and drill, but the basses, in particular, bloom beautifully in James MacMillan's Advent Antiphon and John Tavener's O Adonai.” The Observer, 21st October 2012 “One of a handful of recordings that will stand head and shoulders above the flood of discs of music for the 2012 Christmas season” MusicWeb International, 31st October 2012 “At the heart of this Advent service is a set of seven antiphons specially commissioned from seven composers for Merton College chapel. They work splendidly as a sequence...Peter Phillips and Benjamin Nicholas elicit high levels of technical and expressive achievement from their student charges.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2012 **** “The most notable chapel choir offering [this Christmas]...All the music is radiant, all of it is unexpected, including a set of seven Advent antiphons commissioned by the chaplain...and comes from a choir that's gone from being a minor player in Oxbridge choral music to becoming one of the most exciting groups in its area” Gramophone Magazine, December 2012 “The singing is fresh and opulent, and delivered with a clarity and precision that sits pleasingly with the resonant ambience of the recordings.” The Scotsman, October 2012 “an absorbing programme including seven Advent Antiphons commissioned for the choir by the Revd Dr Simon Jones … The quality of the singing throughout is very high – this is an immensely accomplished and responsive mixed-voice choir … This disc is an impressive achievement in every way … Delphian’s recorded sound is beautiful.” International Record Review, December 2012 “The radiant young voices, sumptuous acoustics and quality items s should make for gripping listening all year round.” The Times, 14th December 2012 “This richly varied collection of mainly contemporary music for Advent, most of it directed by Nicholas, is exquisitely sung...a fine seasonal disc.” Sunday Times, 23rd December 2012 “a satisfyingly solemn, serious affair. Here, the Advent progression from hushed anticipation to bright, hopeful light is given extra weight by the varied choice of material sung...the mixture of settings ancient and modern succeeds beautifully...Lovely, in other words.” The Arts Desk, 22nd December 2012 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Mouton: Missa Dictes moy toutes voz pensées
"Jean Mouton was routinely compared in his lifetime with Josquin on account of his astonishing compositional technique yet his music is quite distinct. He is able to convey such a spirit of calm and poise that in the whole of Renaissance art it is really only rivalled by the altar-pieces of Giovanni Bellini and Hans Memling." Peter Phillips “an admirably rounded view of Mouton.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2012 “outstanding realisations of Mouton's wonderful music...clarity is achieved notwithstanding his mathematical methods, and it's a quality that's brought out superbly by the Tallis Scholars and by the excellent recording, providing both sharp focus and a sense of spaciousness and depth.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2012 ***** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Josquin - Missa De beata virgine & Missa Ave maris stella
The Tallis Scholars have been performing the music of Josquin regularly in concert for nearly 25 years. Their 1986 CD of the Missa Pange lingua was the first recording of Early Music to win the Gramophone Record of the Year Award and their 2009 CD of the Missa Malheur me bat was nominated for a Grammy. This new release is the fifth CD in The Tallis Scholars’ projected Complete Josquin Mass Cycle. “the complex cross-rhythms in the Credo are adroitly handled. Although the performance is a semitone lower than modern pitch, movements such as the Gloria keep their brightness...You can hear their enthusiasm in the exultant finish of the Gloria and the sublime melodic meditations in the Sanctus and Agnus [of the Ave Maris Stella Mass].” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 **** “The recorded sound is up close and personal, putting you right inside the music...An essential buy from a team who never put a note wrong. Excellent, informative booklet-notes too.” Classic FM Magazine, February 2012 ***** “theirs is a performance one wants to listen to many times...For my own part I'm happy to live with the women's voices (I mean: what voices!) and a certain sameness in the interpretations for the absolute clarity, the absolute efficiency, the certainty that nobody is messing around with you. These are authoritative performances that can stand the test of time.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2011 “The Tallis Scholars here achieve an extraordinary clarity of diction, line and texure that leans more towards explication rather than expression. That they get away with it is down to a sophisticated sense of word-painting that grows as much out of the tensions created by the complexity of the music as the meaning of the texts.” International Record Review, November 2011 “Marking the midpoint of the Tallis Scholars’ complete projected Josquin cycle, the two works here, based on plainchants, are masterpieces both...For those who revel in structural listening, Phillips and his charges provide readings of remarkable textural clarity. But they also sing with supercharged expression.” Sunday Times, 23rd October 2011 “the provenance of the two great works here, the Missa De Beata Virgine and Missa Ave Maris Stella, both canonically intricate and based on plainchant, is secure ...There are moments when the Tallis Scholars' beautifully shaped performances seem almost too seraphic, too smooth, but that's a minor quibble.” The Guardian, 27th October 2011 **** “Both, though stylistically contrasting, use chant melody with elaborate canons and mathematical schemes. This exceptional ensemble makes it sound effortless, with impeccable tuning and evenness of tone. Peter Phillips and John Milsom provide invaluable liner notes.” The Observer, 23rd October 2011 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Josquin - Missa Sine Nomine & Missa Ad Fugam
This recording presents the only two Masses by Josquin which are entirely based on canons; a single melody stated in different voice-parts at different times so that it overlaps with itself. To write this kind of music may sound academic to the modern mind: who is interested in mathematical scaffolding which most people can’t hear? But Josquin was interested in it – as were many later composers from Bach to Brahms to Webern – and I knew that, like every composer of genius, he would relish the challenge. “These two pieces have rarely been recorded, and yet they are great works from a truly great composer. …the standards of ensemble singing here are typically high, and the sound recording is a treat.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2008 **** “Sine nomine (without name) must be among Josquin's last and most perfect works. There are magically placed climaxes and contrasting passages with less tension. …the Scholars leave all the work to Josquin: they impose nothing, and the music projects very powerfully.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2008 “If you listen very closely you’re always aware of the canonical device – the clarity and precision of the singing, as well as Josquin’s writing, sees to that – but it’s equally possible – and acceptable, I’d suggest – simply to surrender to the wonderful music” MusicWeb International, May 2013 “The Tallis Scholars sing with clean, penetrating, though slightly top-heavy, sound, and Phillips shapes and paces everything lovingly.” Sunday Times, 13th April 2008 *** “It is a tribute to composer and performers alike that no listener would guess that this splendid music is written according to such a strict contrapuntal principle as the canon. Paradoxically, it is the mathematically complex Missa Sine nomine that actually sounds the more spontaneous and expressive.
Its long flowing lines, beautifully shaped by the Tallis Scholars, and transparent polyphonic textures - for which this two-to-a part ensemble is ideal - show Josquin's ability to transcend all the restrictions of this rigorous technique.” The Telegraph, 26th April 2008 “...there is no sense of hurry in the singing of Josquin Des Pres' Missa Sine Nomine and Ad Fugam, only of great passion and hard, driving, burning Italianate tone. At only two voices to a part, one sometimes misses the full depth and inspiring unison of 20 choristers. But it is hard to fault the clarity of contrapuntal line, the imitative balance across the parts, the exquisitely tuned fifths and octaves, the perfectly arched phrases, the undetectable breathing and the perfect rhythmic precision that makes the music dance and perhaps accounts for the voluptuous cover. Strange choice for a Mass otherwise.” The Times, 19th April 2008 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | The Tallis Scholars sing William Byrd
“England has never produced a greater composer than William Byrd. His music for the Anglican Church has been sung without interruption since the 16th century. In stark contrast his Catholic music was not heard for over 300 years. This selection compares the formal public style of Byrd’s Anglican works like The Great Service with the plangent intimacy of his Masses and motets.” Peter Phillips Recorded in the Church of St John at Hackney and in Tewkesbury Abbey “This will delight fans of Byrd and this choir. Compelling performances (especially Ave verum) and a resonant if slightly distant sound. Some pieces though (the Mass a 5) have a surface, rather than inner, drive.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2008 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Sweelinck - Choral Works Volume 1
“There is an infectious vivacity to this choir’s singing – a joie de vivre and a subtlety with phrasing and
dynamics that appears ingrained. A wonderful attention to detail characterises the work of all three of these
distinguished directors and,besides being a truly gracious and delightful tribute to Sweelinck, the disc is a
fascinating study in contrasted directorial approaches, with each maestro drawing his own desired sound and
style from the singers” Choir & Organ | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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New recordings made in Merton College Chapel, Oxford, in March and April 2005 “Having thoroughly internalised this music, Phillips creates a reading of great authority. The greatest contrast between the two Merton College recordings… is the choir's sound: this now commands a rich range of colours and textures, captured by superior sound engineering.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2007 **** “It's about 25 years since The Tallis Scholars' debut recording, which included the Pope Marcellus Mass and Allegri's Miserere; and in 1994 they issued a video (also available as a CD) of a concert in the Sistine Chapel commemorating the 400th anniversary of Palestrina's death.
This third recording has far more in common with the latter interpretation than with the first, and in essentials little seems to have changed in 10 years, but the wholly ethereal approach a quarter-century ago is now changed into something more robust. That's attributable as much to the difference in the singers' timbres as to a change in Peter Phillips's view of these works.
This new recording's principal innovation is the inclusion of two different readings of the Allegri (or rather, the modern-day elaboration of it that bears his name – a distinction that Phillips's booklet-notes don't acknowledge): one sung quite 'straight', and the other with embellishments to the famous top line evolved over many years (and countless live performances) by soprano Deborah Roberts. This is the main reason for recommending the disc, even though the ornaments to the opening verses are a little slow to get off the ground. By the end, the excitement is undeniable.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | The Tallis Scholars Sing Josquin
“The recordings are outstanding, as are the perfectly blended flowing lines of the singing.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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“The Scholars manage to keep the texture light, without sacrificing anything in the way of richness. It is a very skilful, immediately attractive setting. Even more impressive are the seven motets that make up the rest of the programme. They show off Guerrero's confidence in handling a variety of scorings, formal strategies and moods: the penitential in Usquequo, Domine and Hei mihi, Domine, and the celebratory in the concluding Regina caeli, of which the singers give a particularly resonant performance.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2006 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Requiem
"Settings of the Requiem Mass are among the most frequent requests for concert music. This may seem unlikely, given the subject matter, but in fact it is just that subject matter which makes them so compelling. There is a drama inherent in the text which never fails to move audiences, having, in the first place, brought out the best in the composer. It is not a modern kind of drama such as we are used to seeing in the cinema or on television, but rather of the opposite: of the light which is shining on the deceased (whose body would have been present in the original performances), of the immediacy of heaven, of the peace which death will bring. Put in words this may sound a bit far-fetched, but from the split second that the opening ‘Requiem aeternam' chant is heard, every listener is inevitably transported. It is a classic instance of the power of music over every other art-form to communicate without reserve." Peter Phillips | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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