Joao IV: Crux fidelis

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.

Easter 2009 sees the release of a major new disc on Collegium from John Rutter, the Cambridge Singers and La Nuova Musica, featuring a collection of outstanding motets from the canon of European sacred choral repertoire.

Focusing on the extraordinary body of choral music produced for liturgical use during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, The Sacred Flame explores the rich and varied ways in which European composers responded to sacred texts. Delving into a treasure-trove of music from cultural centres as diverse as Amsterdam, Antwerp, Leipzig, Milan, Rome, and Venice, this collection features familiar classics by Gabrieli,Monteverdi, Palestrina and Schütz, as well as less widely-known masterpieces by Bach, Buxtehude, Hassler and Sweelinck. All are performed in stunning new recordings by the Cambridge Singers at their sensuous and virtuosic best, joined here for the first time on disc by the instrumentalists of La Nuova Musica, rapidly establishing areputation as one of the UK’s most exciting early music ensembles.

All repertoire featured on The Sacred Flame is drawn from the enormously popular European Sacred Music collection edited by John Rutter for the Oxford University Press Oxford Choral Classics series. Recorded in the unparalleled acoustic of the Great Hall at University College School in London, and produced and engineered by award winning producer Simon Eadon, the performances of these much loved works heard on this disc are set to become definitive.

“These singers of John Rutter's choir are so expert, so very good at everything they do… They shade and shape the phrases beautifully” Gramophone

In the run up to their 40th Anniversay on May 1st the Kings Singers present the first of two albums on Signum Classics. Portugese, Spanish and Mexican music imbued with religious sensuousness from the 16th Century - the Siglo de Oro - performed by the world's most prestigious a cappella ensemble.

This release mixes Hispanic music from both sides of the Atlantic with composers including Lobo, Vivanco, Morales, Victoria and Melgas.

Meditation celebrates the completion of David Hill's first year at St John's, and is a highly personal choice of music for Advent, Lent and Passiontide. It is an extraordinarily diverse sequence of pieces, which show the emotional and musical range of the Choir. Allegri's Miserere and Lotti's Crucifixus are deeply loved masterpieces and there are works by composers ranging from Arvo Part to Thomas Tallis as well as Jonathan Harvey's fine new work, which was commissioned for the Choir in 2004.