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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | JS Bach: Cantatas for Ascension Day
Recorded in the City of London in 2012, this album features the missing cantatas from the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage: the Ascension Cantatas. They were recorded live at St Giles Cripplegate (one of the original Pilgrimage venues) in two concerts entirely funded by the generosity of hundreds of donors across the world, following a heartfelt appeal from British comedian Alexander Armstrong. The quartet of soloists include one of the original Pilgrimage soloists, bass Dietrich Henschel, alongside a new generation of Bach interpreters who have worked with the ensembles since 2000 – making this recording a “bridge” between a Bach tradition started 13 years ago and today. The Ascension Oratorio “Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen” (BWV11) is a heart-warming, uplifting work. Beginning and ending with two grand festive choruses, it is full of rhythmic swagger, jazz-like nonchalance, stratospheric glitter for the high trumpet and vocal acrobatics for the choir. “Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen” (BWV43) opens with a glorious, unconventional introduction with high trumpets and drums, and continues with a sequence reminiscent of the opera seria of its time. “Wer da gläubet und getauft wird” (BWV37) focuses on the words of Jesus to his followers and starts with a gentle chorus of choir and orchestra of strings and oboe d’amore. “Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein” (BWV128) features festive opening and closing movements celebrating Christ’s majesty. SDG185 is packaged in SDG’s usual high-quality book-case. It contains a 32-page booklet with original notes by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and sung texts in German and English. “The standard of choral singing and orchestral playing is as high as always and though I have some reservations about the solo team these are largely subjective and not all will share them.” MusicWeb International, 21st May 2013 “The final volume in John Eliot Gardiner’s mammoth Bach Cantata sequence is one of the very best...The performances are incredibly assured, with tight, rich choral singing and orchestral playing full of felicitous detail. Several wonderful oboe da caccia solos stand out, and all is contained within the not-too-resonant acoustic of St Giles' Cripplegate.” The Arts Desk, 20th April 2013 | 
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| |  | JS Bach: Cantatas for Christmas (Box Set)Recorded in 1999-2000 during the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage
Bach, J S: | Cantata BWV63 'Christen, aetzet diesen Tag' Cantata BWV191 'Gloria in excelsis Deo' Cantata BWV91 'Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ' Cantata BWV110 'Unser Mund sei voll Lachens' Cantata BWV121 'Christum wir sollen loben schon' Cantata BWV40 'Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes' Cantata BWV57 'Selig ist der Mann' Cantata BWV64 'Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget' Cantata BWV151 'Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kömmt' Cantata BWV133 'Ich freue mich in dir' Motet BWV225 'Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied' Cantata BWV152 'Tritt auf die Glaubenbahn' Cantata BWV122 'Das neugeborne Kindelein' Cantata BWV28 'Gottlob, nun geht das Jahr zu Ende' Cantata BWV190 'Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied' Cantata BWV143 'Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele' Cantata BWV41 'Jesu, nun sei gepreiset' Cantata BWV16 'Herr Gott, dich loben wir' Cantata BWV171 'Gott, wie dein Name, so ist auch dein Ruhm' Cantata BWV153 'Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind' Cantata BWV58 'Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid' Cantata BWV65 'Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen' Cantata BWV123 'Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen' |
This box set is a collection of Cantatas for the entire Christmas season from our award-winning series of recordings from the 2000 Bach Cantata Pilgrimage. It features a cast of stellar soloists including Magdalena Kožená, Bernarda Fink, Michael Chance, James Gilchrist, Christoph Genz, etc. The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloist give their customary brilliant performances, making this release a must-have gift this Christmas season. It includes some of Bach’s best known cantatas, including the glorious Christen, atzet diesen Tag (CD1), the festive and brilliant Unser Mund sei voll Lachens (CD2) , the infectiously rhythmic Ich freue mich in dir (CD3), Gelobet seist du (CD1) and many other “jewels” which glow with that special sense of expectation that is the hallmark of Bach’s Christmas music. Packaged in a clamshell box, it contains 6 CDs in individual sleeves and a booklet with collected notes by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and texts in German and English. “Fresh and incisive, Gardiner’s live performances are an ideal tonic for any winter blues.” The Times, 21st December 2012 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7Recorded live in Carnegie Hall, New York City in October 2011
Nearly twenty years after their acclaimed Beethoven Symphonies recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique returned to this repertoire for the first time last year, in a tour that took them to London, Philadelphia, Washington and New York. The concert in Carnegie Hall was broadcast live by WQXR, who kindly agreed to make the recording available to us to release on our label. Sir John Eliot’s Gardiner’s reading of these familiar pieces highlights their revolutionary origin. Performing on period instruments, the ORR brings light, clarity and brisk energy, as well as a warm and genuinely thrilling sound. The Seventh, famously described by Wagner as the “apotheosis of the dance”, stands out by its sheer physical energy expressed in its many obsessively repetitive passages. The Fifth, often considered to be a deeply personal piece, also reveals echoes of revolutionary songs. The album is packaged in a digipack and contains a 36 pages booklet with original notes by BBC presenter and music journalist Stephen Johnson. “the electricity in the air is almost tangible. Gardiner is merciless in his demands...The tempo is often exhilarating, the playing always vital, edgy and thrillingly fluent. This is the most exciting Beethoven release you are likely to hear this year.” The Observer, 14th October 2012 “The pace still feels driven, the tension high, but there’s a greater sense of fun and a touch more colour now. You sense that Gardiner’s Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique now have these difficult pieces under their collective skin, and can now project them with a little more spontaneity and freedom. This Fifth seethes, bubbles and spits in places...Symphony no 7 is better still, its rapt introduction leading to an astonishing, punchy Vivace.” The Arts Desk, 20th October 2012 “Even if Weber didn’t make the famous remark attributed to him — “Beethoven is ripe for the madhouse” — you can understand his reaction. Played as the ORR play it, it can still make your hair stand on end.” Sunday Times, 28th October 2012 “The execution is fabulous, the (superlative) stylistic foundation always at the service of the music’s rhythm, energy and inner logic...With every performance of these symphonies, the listener ought to be taken aback at the revolutionary force of Beethoven’s language. Where many fail, Gardiner succeeds.” Financial Times, 24th November 2012 **** “So palpable is the excitement of these live performances that it almost comes as a shock that the applause has been excised...Gardiner and his resplendent Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique rejoice here in the sheer physicality of the music...These are the kind of performances that remind us of what a revolution of reassessment period-instrument bands provoke.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2013 “after hearing these explosive, invigorating and electrifying performances, we are reminded once again of the ferocious intensity that must have shell-shocked 19th-century Viennese audiences...Gardiner brings tremendous rhythmic drive and irresistable forward momentum to both Symphonies and revels in the sheer audacity of Beethoven's orchestration” BBC Music Magazine, January 2013 **** “These are thrusting, dynamic performances...though the music is played very speedily there’s no skating over Beethoven’s drama and argument.” MusicWeb International, November 2012 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | J S Bach: MotetsRecorded live in London, St John’s Smith Square, 2011
Thirty years on from their acclaimed recording for Erato, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir return to the Bach Motets in a new SDG recording, taken from a concert in London last year at the end of a tour which saw performances in Italy, France, The Netherlands and Germany. The Motets can be seen as some of Bach’s most perfect and hypnotic compositions. Through their extraordinary complexity and density, they require exceptional virtuosity and sensitivity of all the performers. Each of them is endlessly fascinating, and each inhabits its own sound world, Bach's masterful use of canon, fugue and counterpoint, the brilliant exploitation of double-choir sonorities are perfectly matched by the Monteverdi Choir's virtuosity. The album is packaged in a hard back book similar to our other releases. It contains 44 pages booklet with original notes by John Eliot Gardiner and texts in German, English and French. “performances of surpassing beauty and irresistible dancing energy.” Sunday Times, 6th May 2012 “Utterly sublime.” The Independent, 4th May 2012 “the Monteverdi Choir can turn from Rottweiler into lamb in the blink of an eye...Some might fine Gardiner's approach theatrical; he could persuasively counter that the motets engage unflinchingly with matters of life and death...Gardiner trusts Bach's simplicity and inwardness as much as he relishes his complexity and drama.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2012 ***** “Delicacy and precision characterise the choral singing in every track. The balance between the voice groups allows every detail of the counterpoint to shine through...The singers give a real questing quality to all the counterpoint, as if they are exploring these intricate textures for the first time. Their approach to the homophonic textures is just as sophisticated.” MusicWeb International, August 2012  BBC Music Magazine
Choral & Song Choice - August 2012 |
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| |  | Johann Christoph Bach: Welt, gute Nacht
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. “It's as elegantly poised as you'd expect from Gardiner, with the eight singers accompanied in sombre period arrangements by the English Baroque Soloists, in which the violas da gamba seem to weep.” The Independent, 9th September 2011 *** “His music has a less complex surface than the more familiar oeuvre of Johann Sebastian: it invites contemplation...With soloists of the calibre of Katherine Fuge and Peter Harvey, John Eliot Gardiner and his ensemble have uncovered a treasure trove. Their performances communicate not just skill, but delight in the world behind the music.” Financial Times, 17th September 2011 **** “This older Bach’s spare textures and bold chromatic effects make him a highly individual voice in this penitential but deeply moving music. Peter Harvey’s bass and Claire Wilkinson’s mezzo shine out from this “choir” of soloists, but Gardiner is the driving force.” Sunday Times, 25th September 2011 “This fascinating collection, based on a concert that John Eliot Gardiner conducted at Cadogan Hall, London, in 2009, covers a good range of Johann Christoph's surviving output. The two five-part motets are intense, slightly dour affairs...the two arias are also haunted by death, though, like most of the works here, the harmonic richness of the music makes them seem anything but lugubrious.” The Guardian, 22nd September 2011 *** “CPE Bach called Christoph "the great and expressive composer", and here the marvellous Lament (the excellent Matthew Brook) and quirky Dialogue (with its endlessly varied Chaconne) amply bear this out in superb performances by Gardiner's consort. Christian's unusual Requiem is no less striking in its force, but more conventional in its language.” The Observer, 9th October 2011 “Vocal soloists and instrumentalists alike bring JC Bach's intense Lutheran feeling to life, each piece taking the lsitener on an emotional and musical journey. Vocal lines are beautifully and cleanly phrased, with a lovely overall balance of voices...Gardiner's interpretations are as beautifully researched, judged and executed as always.” Classic FM Magazine, December 2011 **** “Bach of any generation from Gardiner's eminently engaged and engaging forces is self-recommending; yet for its rarity value alone Welt, gute Nacht is as important a release as that of a B minor Mass or St Matthew Passion.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 **** “Nearly every piece has a singular gesture or feature that captures the imagination...The vocal soloists acquit themselves well in music that demands utter commitment, although just occasionally the very last degree of refinement and control eludes them...In a cappella formation, however, they offer some of the disc's most memorable moments” Gramophone Magazine, December 2011 “There's not a single weak link here: even the simplest choral harmonizations are loving crafted and the long 25-minute wedding dialogue never flags for a second. Gardiner and his team sound as though they love this music, delivering dramatically inflected performances, which, partly becuase they are live, have that extra edge of emotional and rhetorical reach. The recording is one of the best I've heard on the Soli Deo Gloria label.” International Record Review, November 2011 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 39 & 41
SDG is proud to release its first Mozart CD, recorded live at Cadogan Hall. This album made the headlines in 2006 as the UK’s first classical “on the night” recording. CDs were made during the second part of the concert for the audience to take home after the concert. This is the first time this CD is commercially released. Symphonies 39 & 49 are among the last composed by Mozart. They use the full eighteenth-century orchestra, complete with trumpets and timpani. Symphony 39 (K543) shows Mozart at his most exalted in the orchestral passages, while some passages remain intimate and touching, with more delicate themes. The Minuet features the orchestra’s guest artists, the clarinets, in a waltz-like Trio. The “Jupiter”, Mozart’s final symphony (no 41, K551), belongs to a sequence of grand ceremonial works in C major. Typically for Mozart it juxtaposes a number of different contrasting musical characters and ideas, from the formal and aristocratic to the heartfelt and soulful. In the finale, the composer’s compositional virtuosity is on display. Through the whole runs an extraordinary spirit, a mixture of intellectual excitement, the feeling of a grand design, and a sense of fun. “These are lively, slightly hard-driven performances” The Guardian, 4th March 2011 *** “Unlike so many 'live' recordings, this one captures the essence of pure music-making and re-creative energy. Period instruments and historical information are means to glorious ends here...[Gardiner] and his musicians take risks within the context of clearly reasoned interpretations, defying hidebound convention to explore the music's essential truth.” Classic FM Magazine, May 2011 ***** “Musically, the performances are first rate, with the slow introduction to Symphony No. 39 sounding grander and more solemn than it does in Charles Mackerras's widely-admired version with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the Finale (done with both repeats) generating a tremendous sense of energy.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2011 **** | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Bach Cantatas Volume 12Cantatas for the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity & Cantatas for the Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity
Recording locations: Tooting/ Winchester, November 2000. SDG is delighted to release Volume 12 - Cantatas for the twenty-second and twenty-third Sundays after trinity. John Eliot Gardiner, The Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists performed both of these programmes in England: at All Saints church in Tooting and at Winchester Cathedral, in November 2000. The soloists include James Gilchrist, Peter Harvey and Joanne Lunn. The highlight of this album is Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (“Sleepers, wake”) – one of Bach’s best known cantatas, and one that has long been part of the Monteverdi Choir’s repertoire. It is described as “a cantata without weaknesses, without a dull bar, technically, emotionally and spiritually of the highest order”. Ich armer Mensch, ich Sündenknecht (“I, wretched man, I slave to sin”) is Bach’s only cantata for solo tenor still in existence. It is sung movingly by James Gilchrist. Of three cantatas on the parable of the unjust steward (BWV 55, 89, 115), Mache dich, mein Geist, bereit (“Prepare yourself, my soul”) is considered to stand out for its subtle instrumental writing and spellbinding arias, which evoke the yearning of the soul for divine mercy. The recording in Tooting (CD1) is the only one in the whole series that wasn’t recorded live: the original concert took place in Eton chapel, right under the Heathrow airport flight path, so we had to try and recreate the same conditions in a quieter place. This album is packaged with a separate index sheet of the Cantata series. “This ongoing recording project ranks as one of the musical events of the decade.” The Observer “One of the most ambitious musical projects of all time” Gramophone “Gardiner with his characteristic sense of theatre imbues [the opening of BWV140] with urgency and anticipation. BWV 115 is masterly throughout.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2010 ***** “There are countless highlights in the final two volumes...Gillian Keith is gloriously assuaging in "Ich halte er mit dem lieben Gott" from BWV52.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2010 | | | (also available to download from $20.75) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Bach Cantatas Volume 18Cantatas for Christmas Day, Cantatas for the First Sunday after Epiphany & Cantatas for the Feast of Epiphany
Recording locations: Recorded live in Weimar/ Leipzig/ Hamburg, December 1999/ January 2000. SDG174 is the much awaited last volume of the Bach Cantatas Pilgrimage, one of the most talked about musical events of the last decade. This is an anthology of the Christmas period, combining cantatas for Christmas Day and the Epiphany. It features ten acclaimed soloists, including Magdalena Kožená, Bernarda Fink, Michael Chance, James Gilchrist and Christopher Genz. The album opens with Christen, ätzet diesen Tag (“Christians, engrave this Day”), which was performed on Christmas Day 1999 to launch the year-long pilgrimage. This is one of Bach’s best known cantatas. The accompagnato recit was sung by Bernarda Fink to great acclaim. Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the song of the angels at the birth of baby Jesus, is best known as the Gloria in the B Minor Mass. Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen (“All they from Sheba shall come”) describes the procession of the three magi. Bach conveys the majesty of the scene by using high horns, and the recorders and oboes da caccia create an Eastern-like atmosphere. The cantatas on this album display a great variety of dramatic expression. Both Mein Liebster Jesus ist verloren (“My dearest Jesus is lost”) and Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen (”Beloved Jesus, my Desire“) tell the same story, but in a different style, expressing different emotions. This album was recorded at Weimar’s Herderkirche, Leipzig’s Nikolaikirche and Hamburg’s Hauptikirche St Jakobi. SDG174 is packaged with a separate index sheet of the Cantata series. “This ongoing recording project ranks as one of the musical events of the decade.” The Observer “One of the most ambitious musical projects of all time” Gramophone “The variety of these works for Christmas and Epiphany is astonishing, and the singing, from the Monteverdi Choir and soloists including Magdalena Kozena, fully matches it.” Sunday Times, 10th October 2010 **** “With 10 top-flight soloists, it brings this awe-inspiring project to a powerful end.” The Independent on Sunday, 31st October 2010 *** “There are countless highlights in the final two volumes. The duet-singing in BWV32 between Claron McFadden and Peter Harvey is memorably rewarding. Similarly cathartic is the peerless, reassuring expression of eternal union in the great duet of BWV154 with Michael Chance and James Gilchrist.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2010 “As before, performances offer the zinging energy, heartfelt beauty and occasional warts of the best live music-making...Christmas jubilation never turns strident. Elsewhere, Gardiner’s forces radiate quiet intensity in the tragedy and pathos of BWV 123, Liebster Immanuel — music of simple sobriety, powerful enough to stop the world turning.” The Times, 26th November 2010 **** “The two strongly contrasting arias [of BWV 63], both duets, are expressively sung but it is Bernarda Fink's beautifully controlled, extended recitative which stands out for its tender articulation...James Gilchrist makes a fine contribution...notably in the solo tenor cantata 'Ich armer Mensch'” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2010 **** “Bernarda Fink brings a moving sense of wonder to her accompanied recitative. From time to time, you feel that the performers are flying by the seat of their pants, but the commitment and enjoyment shine through.” Classic FM Magazine, February 2011 | | | (also available to download from $20.75) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Brahms: Symphony No. 4Recorded live at Royal Festival Hall, London, 5-8 October 2008
Soli Deo Gloria is proud to release the last instalment of its successful Brahms Symphony series which sees John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique explore the music of Johannes Brahms. This album is a celebration of the Fourth Symphony and the various pieces that contributed to its making. From baroque to romantic, and from great orchestral pieces to intimate choral works, the listener gains a wonderful insight into Brahms’s mind and music making, through pieces that he loved and inspired him. The Fourth Symphony was described by Richard Strauss as “a giant work, great in concept an invention, masterful in its form, and yet from A to Z genuine Brahms, in a word, an enrichment to our art”. Drawing from many sources of the musical past, it is nevertheless absolutely unique. It is impregnated with baroque influence – the Finale was directly inspired by Bach’s cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich. Brahms enjoyed conducting less known old repertoire such as Gabrieli’s Sanctus Benedictus and Schütz’s Saul, Saul. They influenced his choral writing as we can hear in the Geistliches Lied. Brahms was also famously inspired by Beethoven, and the Finale to the Fourth clearly owes to his Coriolan overture. The booklet includes a conversation between John Eliot Gardiner and composer Hugh Wood, explaining how the pieces relate to each other and giving a moving account of Brahms as a composer and as a man. This recording was made during the 2008 Brahms: Roots and Memories tour. “Gardiner brings a delightful crispness and spontaneity to the work: he creates great sweeps of emotion without sacrificing inner details, and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique respond to him by playing with warmth and passion.” METRO, 3rd September 2010 “[The motets] provide a surprising context for the symphony, given in a transparent, analytical performance by the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Harmony and counterpoint gleam, with no aural smudges and not a jot of bookish didacticism.” The Observer, 12th September 2010 “...the variety of tone, dynamic and texture from Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique is consistently well defined...A no-prisoners account of Beethoven's Coriolan Overture opens a programme that explores Brahms' choral influences, with pristine excerpts of Gabrieli, Schütz and Bach.” The Independent on Sunday, 12th September 2010 “Gardiner's highly energised, raw-boned account, superbly played by the ORR and never dwelling unduly on inessential expressive details, has a real sense of culmination, of the end of a creative journey that the whole series of recordings has illuminated in a genuinely original way.” The Guardian, 16th September 2010 **** “The symphony is upstaged by choral works (Schütz, Gabrieli, Beethoven and Brahms) which illuminate its creative background. The jewel is Brahms’s wondrous Geistliches Lied, giving the Monteverdi Choir its finest hour.” Financial Times, 17th September 2010 *** “this disc is a triumph of imaginative programming, an education for anyone wishing to hear the music that inspired the composer...Gardiner’s approach is the antithesis of the muddy sound of most “classic” recordings. His tempi are brisk yet flexible, as Brahms wanted, but he refuses to sentimentalise the music.” Sunday Times, 26th September 2010 **** “everything seems in focus: not just the tempo, but also the rhythmic drive and urgency seem absolutely right in the third and fourth movements...This performance gives a lively sense of what that authentic Brahms sound might have been like, and the music gains enormously - not an ounce of flab on these textures” BBC Music Magazine, December 2010 ***** “It's fascinating to hear the Bach cantata movement that inspired that Finale, with the orchestra in its comfort zone. The little-known choral pieces are done well.” Classic FM Magazine, December 2010 **** “Textures are as transparent as chamber music. Phrases and ideas are nuanced, but disciplined...In short, Gardiner and his orchestra have placed the work firmly within the classical tradition, as a natural continuation from Brahms' symphonic idol Beethoven, rather than the seamless precursor to Wagner.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 2nd November 2010 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Santiago a cappellaRecording location: St Alban the Martyr, Holborn, London
Soli Deo Gloria is proud to release a sequel to its best selling album to date, Pilgrimage to Santiago (SDG701). This CD is a journey through medieval and renaissance Spain. It takes listeners from the 14th century polyphonies of the Llibre Vermell (Red Book) of Montserrat – one of the only surviving manuscripts, from a time when music was transmitted orally – to elaborate 16th and 17th century choral music which travelled internationally thanks to the recent invention of print. During the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods, pilgrimage routes formed part of a broader network of cultural and commercial connections between ecclesiastical institutions in Spain, Portugal and the rest of Europe. This is an anthology of Golden Age “classics” which would have been performed throughout Europe for centuries. In turn moving, intimate, spectacular and awe inspiring, this sacred music is always uplifting and deeply spiritual. This is the oldest of two recordings made around the 2004 Pilgrimage to Santiago – a project undertook by the Monteverdi Choir and Sir John Eliot Gardiner for their 40th anniversary. The musicians travelled through France and Spain to perform sacred polyphonies of the Iberian peninsula along the route to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela. The CD features the same luxurious packaging as Pilgrimage to Santiago. It includes detailed notes by musicologist Tess Knighton. This album was previously released internationally by Universal Spain under the title Santiago A Capella. “A wonderful collection brilliantly sung. Only Mariam Matrem is a true pilgrim piece, but others (Lobo's Versa est) are a revelation.” BBC Music Magazine “...it is a beautifully planned and executed selection, occasionally a little too English perhaps, but recorded at Temple Church in London with just the right amount of warm resonance.” The Guardian, 21st October 2010 **** “Originally released by Universal in 2005, this features a series of sublime interpretations of Spanish polyphony by the Monteverdi Choir...[Lobo's] "Lamentationes Ieremiae Prophetae" furnishing the centrepiece, its arching long phrases like the vertiginous vaulting of a sonic cathedral.” The Independent, 8th October 2010 **** “Prolonged exposure to the solemn polyphony of Victoria, Lobo and Cardoso can be wearing, but it is relieved by more dramatic works from Guerrero. The choir makes a glorious sound.” The Telegraph, 15th October 2010 **** | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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