SACDs - Praetorius, M

Christmas with the Stuttgart Hymnus Choirboys, a choir looking back on 111 years of tradition. The spectrum of their new release on this freshly recorded Super Audio CD ranges over the centuries, from Eccard and Schütz by way of Bach and Brahms through to Reda and Willcocks. Fully dimensioned motets, intimate choral pieces, and festive polychoral compositions resonating throughout the sacred space of the church interior are represented on this release. The choir director Rainer Johannes Homburg can draw on substantial instrumental resources: the organ, cello, and violone form the basso continuo are joined by three percussionists!

Setting off on a sonic journey through Europe, Gregorio Paniagua and his acclaimed ensemble Atrium Musicæ de Madrid took the famous theme known as La Spagna, used widely by composers across Europe for several centuries, as the starting point in their quest to bring to life the many and varied old scores that used this themes.

In their recording, the ensemble used a huge range of instruments, from clavicytherium (a ‘vertical harpsichord’) to a simple plastic cup, and the vivid performances and no less vivid recording enchanted both early music fans and audiophiles.

This is the first re-edition of the entire programme from this legendary 1980 recording.

Few festivals are as rich in music as Christmas. And the thirst for music at Christmas seems never to be satisfied. The Christmas message of peace and goodwill is always relevant, whether we are thinking of our 'little world', our family and friends, or look out across the 'big world'. And perhaps, in times of tumult and struggle, it is all the more important to sing songs of peace and reconciliation.

In 1917 the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams arranged Nine Christmas Carols for the choir that he got together in the ambulance unit in which he was serving in Greece. A knowledge of this background gives an extra dimension to performing these settings. How strange the carol God Rest You Merry Gentlemen, with its message "Now to the Lord sing praises… and with true love and brotherhood each other now embrace", must have sounded as it was sung by the young soldiers in the presence of war and privations.