-
Following a string of five-star reviews for their previous discs of 20th-century French choral music (Poulenc’s Figure Humaine – SIGCD197) and Renaissance polyphony (Victoria’s Requiem Mass – SIGCD248), the professional chamber-choir Tenebrae go from strength to strength with this new recording of British partsongs and choral music – centered on Hubert Parry’s Songs of Farewell. Composed towards the end of Parry’s life, the Songs of Farewell have taken on something of an epithetical interpretation; they are almost a musical summation of his compositional life, reflecting Parry’s love of English renaissance madrigals and partsongs as much as the influence on his work from German composers like Brahms – made more complicated as these works were composed as the country (and its music) fell out of favour at the start of the Great War. This disc also includes works by Tavener, Sullivan, Holst, Rodney Bennett, Howells, Elgar and Vaughan Williams. Editor's Choice: Precision, spot-on intonation and sensitive phrasing inform Tenebrae's affectionate performances of these settings of great English poets, the texts of which are provided in the classily produced booklet - Classic FM Magazine A tour-de-force of feather-light, eight-part polyphony - The Independent Performed with Tenebrae’s customary poise - The Financial Times Conductor Nigel Short extracts the themes of desperate longing beautifully from a clean and well balanced choral sound - BBC Music Magazine -
Following in Signum’s series of composer-led releases with the BBC Singers, this new disc represents the culmination of a collaboration between British composer Bernard Hughes and the choir that began in 2002. Combining modern poetry by E. E. Cummings and Siegfried Sassoon alongside Norse poetry, Hughes combines both ancient and modern elements into his compositions, which are ably performed by the BBC Singers under Paul Brough.Bernard Hughes’s music has been performed at major venues in Britain and abroad and received a number of broadcasts on BBC Radio 3. He was runner-up at the 2009 British Composer Awards for the choral work The Death of Balder (featured on this recording).
-
Following an acclaimed tribute album to Benny Goodman, the ‘King of Swing’, the Julian Bliss Septet returns with a new album that showcases the music of jazz legends, George and Ira Gershwin, and – by popular demand - some of Benny’s compositions and much-loved tunes. The Julian Bliss Septet was formed in 2010 and quickly became known for their trademark inspiring jazz-fuelled shows which have captivated audiences across the globe. Their dazzling virtuosity, extraordinary musicianship and charming humour shines through their programmes of swing, Latin, American and jazz music. The band has played at some of the most prestigious venues and festivals around the world, including the famous Ronnie Scott’s and Wigmore Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Bermuda Jazz Festival and on multiple US tours to sold-out clubs and concert halls including Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center (New York). "From the fiery first number, the prodigious talents of Julian Bliss and this wonderful ensemble are on full display – song arrangements that work well, rock-solid time, an infectious rhythmic confidence from each member that drives the group, brilliant improvisation all around (here in the clarinet, vibraphone, trumpet and drums), Bliss’s gorgeous classical sound and an ensemble surety that is only attained through years of working together. These traits are a constant on each of the 12 tracks…this attractive disc is a must have for any jazz clarinetist or jazz consumer. Give it a try – you will not be disappointed" - The Clarinet -
Ian Venables’ reputation as ‘one of the finest song composers of his generation’ (BBC Music Magazine) finds voice in this disc of premiere recordings of two of his substantial song cycles. International baritone, Roderick Williams is joined by the Carducci String Quartet and pianist Graham J Lloyd in The Song of the Severn, a celebration of Venables’ home county of Worcestershire and The Pine Boughs Past Music, a poignant tribute to the poetic talents of Ivor Gurney. Other songs include those with solo piano and arrangements by Graham J Lloyd, for string quartet. Each work highlights Venables’ gift of being able to take poetry to a higher level of appreciation and at the same time create works of lasting beauty. Sharply memorable music of bewitching lyricism, idiomatic grace and rapt instinct - GramophoneThe Carducci String Quartet [are] exemplary in their interpretations - BBC Music Magazine -
When Michael Nyman started reinventing the English baroque back in the 1980s, one critic described the result as “pump-action Purcell.” This recording combines these two singular musical styles through the stunning voice of countertenor Iestyn Davies and viol consort Fretwork, serving as the bridge across three centuries. The programme combines bold harmonies, wondrous inventions, and melodies that will haunt your dreams – whether from the 17th century or the 21st. Recorded following a concert tour of the programme, the disc includes the premiere recording of a new commission from Michael Nyman, Music after a While – based upon Purcell’s song, or more particularly upon its strikingly original bass-line, with its insidious rising chromatics. ★★★★ A beautiful account - Planet Hugill Editor's Choice: The Nyman performances are exemplary – crisp and cleanly articulated from Fretwork and dispatched by Davies with a vacant, unrippled purity that is so essential to the music - Gramophone All executed with perfection - The Observer -
Over thirty years ago, Fretwork made its first recording – well, technically speaking it was the second album to be recorded, but the first to be released – and it was called ‘In nomine’, which consisted mainly of 16th-century examples of this remarkable instrumental form. While this isn’t an anniversary of that release, Fretwork wanted to look both back to that first release and forward, to bring the genre up to date. There were several examples of the In nomine and related forms that couldn’t be recorded in 1987, and this album seeks to complete the project. The form was created unwittingly by John Taverner (1490-1545). His 6-part mass, Gloria tibi Trinitas, is based on the plainchant of that name. In the Sanctus, at the words Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini (Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord), the six-part texture is pared down to two and three parts; and then, with the words in nomine Domini, Taverner makes, for the only time in the mass, a complete statement of the cantus firmus, accompanied by three voices. This four- parts section – very beautiful as it is – must have struck contemporaries as some kind of perfection, to be used as a template, to be emulated and copied. And then those copies were copied and changed again. Typically, an In nomine would have the alto, or second part, playing this cantus firmus in long slow notes of equal length. The other parts would weave counterpoint around it, sometimes commenting upon it, sometimes ignoring it. Typically, the cantus firmus starts and ends on the note D – but there are many exceptions to all these ‘rules’. -
The Mozartists continue their continuing complete Mozart opera recording series with the one-act dramatic serenade Il sogno di Scipione, K. 126. Composed in 1771 as a celebratory homage to Prince Archbishop Sigismund Schrattenbach of Salzburg, the Archbishop died before the piece could be performed. In the spring of 1772 Mozart amended the work so that it could be used in honour of Schrattenbach’s successor, Hieronymus Colloredo – the only necessary change was to alter the name of the dedicatee in the nal recitative. The story of Scipio’s Dream takes place in c.148 BC, while the celebrated Roman general is a guest in the palace of his ally Massinissa, King of Numidia (in modern day Tunisia). As Scipio falls into a deep sleep, he dreams that the allegorical figures of Fortuna (Fortune) and Costanza (Constancy) appear to him in Elysium and demand that he should choose one of them to follow for the rest of his days. ★★★★★ The singing, indeed the general musicianship throughout, is really good - Classical Ear ★★★★ This is a rewarding set, gracefully paced… An impressive achievement - BBC Music Magazine ★★★★ Provides another fascinating insight into the compositional skills of the young Wolfgang and comes up to the high standards we have come to expect from Ian Page and his group - iClassical ★★★★ The virtuoso arias demand singers of agility, which Classical Opera's cast, headed by tenor Stuart Jackson, supplies in abundance. Ian Page is the lively conductor - Financial Times ★★★★ An engaging and fully dramatized reading of the music… Page brings fluency and character to their generous instrumental introductions and succeeding vocal displays - Classical Source Ian Page presides over a charming performance, with well-paced recitatives and appropriate, sometimes extravagant decoration. This is minor Mozart, done supremely well - Gramophone Not for the first time in this series I find myself returning in the final analysis to Page’s direction of his outstanding orchestra… beautifully nuanced and balanced playing - Opera Magazine -
The King’s Singers perform the complete Italian madrigal collection Il Trionfo di Dori. Commissioned by Venetian nobleman Leonardo Sanudo in 1592, the collection features 29 works, each written by a different composer and poet, and set for nine voices. Among them are Vecchi, Gabrieli, Marenzio, de Monte, Striggio, Anerio, Gastoldi, Porta and Palestrina.★★★★★ The King's Singers bring this great monument of Italian music history to striding life - Sinfini Music ★★★★★ The King’s Singers are on top form, singing with a sunny freshness appropriate to this happy music, blending beautifully, and moving as one into crescendos and decrescendos, ranging in dynamic from a whispering pianissimo to declamatory episodes of high drama - Early Music Review It is hard to imagine a group with greater potential to do justice to this music of love and mythology than they - Gramophone The King's Singers turn out their characteristic, highly polished finish: diction is razor-sharp, ensemble and intonation are well-nigh flawless - BBC Music Magazine A masterclass in delicate phrasing, elegant lines, exemplary Italian and effortless madrigalian expression with standards of intonation to languish after...delizioso - Choir & Organ If you have to make a single choice The King's Singers will appeal more and it's also beautifully recorded in a venue, which is at least new to this reviewer - Music Web International -
For over four decades of success the world over, including many award-winning recordings and newly commissioned works, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio continues to dazzle audiences and critics alike with its performances. Since making their debut at the White House for President Carter’s Inauguration in January 1977, pianist Joseph Kalichstein, violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson have set the standard for performance of the piano trio literature. This album marks their first release on Signum Classics. "[In Celebration (Trio No. 1)] It’s dance rhythms were chosen to span that 70-year period, from Boogie-woogie and be-bop to the Charleston and Salsa. It’s great fun, effortlessly transcending the tone-row that generates its musical material…the playing here is technically right on the money and infectiously joyful, reflecting decades of experience…Immaculately played in stunning sound, it’s a disc you’ll want to play over and over again" - Musical America “Silverman’s exuberant eclecticism is evident in the two trios recorded here....The [second] trio has a daring but effective dramatic structure. It’s also full of fun.... ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’ sung here quite expressively by Sting.... The Trio’s performances are eloquent and richly characterful.” - Gramophone -
Leading performers of 17th-century music Fretwork, His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts and the Magdalena Consort (directed by Peter Harvey) combine forces under the artistic direction of William Hunt for this rst complete recording of the consort anthems of Orlando Gibbons. Gibbons’ music is one of the artistic glories of the rst Stuart reign. Amongst his sacred compositions, verse anthems such as is is the record of John and Behold, thou hast made my days are long acknowledged masterpieces, amongst the greatest in all English sacred music, but best known to most in their setting for choir and organ. Here they are presented together with an array of other great anthems, some of them scarcely known, in their more intricate and colourful versions for consort accompaniment. Following the instruction of such contemporary writers as Morley and Caccini, these radical new performances place communication of text at the forefront, seeking to rediscover the dramatic essence of the verse anthem that made it arguably the most effective musical creation of the English Reformation. With the incisive declamatory skill of several of the UK’s leading period performers, they reveal the extraordinary rhetorical and poetic power of this music, as it might have been heard in the Chapel Royal and the private domestic chapels of early 17th century England. Learn more about the Orlando Gibbons project here: https://www.orlandogibbonsproject.com/ ★★★★★ Subtle, seductively supple and sinuous singing and playing… Volume 2 from this dream-team will be eagerly awaited - Choir and Organ ★★★★★ This is the finest recording of this quintessentially English music that we are likely to have… a real treat, and an impressive master-class in how these texts should be declaimed - Early Music Review Gibbons at his most alluring: a glorious fusion of the intimate and ceremonial in richly-voiced, warmhearted performances - BBC Radio 3 Thomas Morley's lovely phrase evoking music's ability to link earthly listeners to heavenly contemplation - The Times The effect, in the three In nomines recorded here, is of uncanny beauty, familiar notes polished up to a new sheen and lustre - GramophoneAll downloads include booklets. -
Leading performers of 17th-century music the Magdalena Consort, Fretwork and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts combine forces under the artistic direction of William Hunt for their second release exploring the English Pre-Restoration Verse Anthem – Psalms and Royal Anthems, particularly those of William Byrd. More than any composer before him, William Byrd catered prolifically to a wide variety of musicians. Connoisseurs of Latin motets at home and abroad, troupes of boy actors with their viols and their unbroken voices, solo keyboard players, the choirs of the established English church, and the underground ensembles of Catholic households where mass was celebrated in secret— performers of all these kinds could look to Byrd for quantities, in some cases vast, of music of the highest excellence. Learn more about the Orlando Gibbons project here: https://www.orlandogibbonsproject.com/ ★★★★ “William Hunt’s troops, led by the characterful Magdalena Consort, backed up with viols, sackbuts, cornets and perky reconstructed Tudor organ, service their wonderful music with a dazzling kaleidoscope of colours” - The Times "The vowel sounds… are thrilling. The diphthonged synchronicity of 'power' and 'ire' are a thing of beauty...The intonation and blend against the glistening strings of Fretwork are second to none...This is music making of the highest calibre, steeped in emotional intelligence and affective balance. Booklet notes...crown the disc with excellent musicological detail" - Gramophone ★★★★ Performance ★★★★★ Recording "An ear-tingling fulsomeness that guarantees the disc a splendiferous climax...It sets a marker for all that follows as 'chains of gold' are spun with disarming felicity" - BBC Music Magazine "The music itself is varied and of the highest quality, the performers are among the finest in this repertory...a most attractive and enthralling programme, supported by a booklet that is both scholarly and readable...The performances leave nothing to be desired. The viols and wind...are at the top of their profession. All the singers are excellent...but every individual performer, alongside their technical and musicological colleagues, has been crucial in making this an outstanding disc" - Early Music Review "I think this is a very very special recording. It’s the second volume as it were of this series and it’s very much worth procuring" - BBC Radio 3 Record Review -
The King’s Singers release an EP consisting of six tracks recorded during the Coronavirus lockdown. Featuring classic arrangements of well-loved songs that are an integral part of their repertoire, these tracks were recorded remotely and showcase their versatility and talent at producing superlative music, particularly during these difficult moments in history. The King’s Singers also released videos of each of the tracks on this EP on social media during the lockdown period, racking up millions of views, allowing the group to continue performing, despite the cancellation of their tour for their recent Signum album, Finding Harmony. -
An exceptional programme from two consummate performers, blending new arrangements of classical and baroque works with the premiere recording of Roger Steptoe’s Sonata for Trumpet and Organ.Graham Ashton is professor of Trumpet at Purchase Collage, New York, and as a performer over the past 25 years has given over 200 master classes and recitals in 21 different countries, recording for Signum, Nimbus, Virgin Classics and many more. Michael Matthes is a similarly esteemed performer – a tenured organist of the Cathedral of Troyes, France and a recipient of the prestigious French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in recognition of his services to music.
-
CD & DVD SET The London Sinfonietta combine two works from Thomas Adès, one of the most distinctive and popular voices in modern composition. Both works feature accompanying films (by Tal Rosner and Sophie Clements) that are included in this CD/DVD set. This is the second CD for the London Sinfonietta with Signum. It follows their October release of music by Louis Andriessen, featuring the UK premiere of Anaïs Nin, alongside his famed work De Staat. In Seven Days is a musical interpretation for piano and orchestra of the biblical ‘creation’ by Thomas Adès, composed in collaboration with a film-piece by the artist and filmmaker Tal Rosner. Both music and film evoke the processes of the creation rather than the objects described in the movement titles, using simple elements in repeated and evolving contexts in a perpetual state of flux, change and growth. The Piano Studies Nos 6 & 7 are arrangements of player-piano works by the American composer Conlon Nancarrow. An influential figure to generations of composers, Nancarrow’s studies for the player-piano (or pianola) allowed him to generate music of extreme rhythmic complexity in a multitude of inventive ways. These arrangements for two pianos by Thomas Adès capture the strange magic of the originals, where fragmented musical ideas are played off against each other in a wild, almost jazz-like way. The works are accompanied by film-visualisations by Tal Rosner and Sophie Clements. Bold and delightful, this release would make an admirable gift for a discerning Christmas stocking - The TimesThe ingenuity and dazzling colours of Adès’s wheeling rhythmic and harmonic cycles are jaw-dropping, as is the performers’ virtuosity - The Telegraph -
A digital single with all proceeds to be donated to Cancer Research UK. -
Following its nomination for a Gramophone Early Music Award in 2014, Contrapunctus releases an album of motets from the Baldwin Tudor partbooks, on the theme of mortality. Conducted by Owen Rees, the album includes Sheppard’s epic Media vita and works by Byrd, Parsons, Mundy, Teverner, Gerarde and Tallis, with Contrapunctus’s own reconstructions of the missing tenor parts. ★★★★★ Contrapunctus really knows what to do with these pieces and from the very first item the tuning is superb and the ensemble rock solid. Moreover, Owen Rees’s interpretations are revelatory and even visionary - BBC Music Magazine ★★★★ Whether you listen in Lenten penitence or in general hope of spiritual balm, the message is universal, the singing superb - The Observer Rees’s choir brings an intensity of sound and dramatic dynamics, in music that contemplates the pain of death in ecstatic elation and sublime devotion - The Sunday Times The undeniable jewel in the crown of this selection is Sheppard’s magisterial setting of Media vita … Contrapunctus is the ideal group for this superb repertoire, and I look forward with eager anticipation to future CDs in this series - Early Music Review There’s lovely balance and clarity of sound from as fine a clutch of voices - Choir & Organ