J. Brahms - Ein Deutsches Requiem - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The first album from the Choir of St John's with their new music director - Christopher Gray. Leaning into the college's well-established tradition of championing new music, at the heart of the programme are two triptychs James MacMillan's Cantos Sagrados, composed 35 years ago, and Joanna Marsh's Echoes in Time, commissioned by the College in recent months. There is also a new choral work by Helena Paish and a new organ work by Martin Baker alongside existing works by Roxanna Panufnik and Dobrinka Tabakova. The commissioned works were conceived with the distinctive environment of St Johns' Victorian chapel (designed by George Gilbert Scott and consecrated in May 1869), it's organ and it's fine, world-famous choir which has done service since it's post-Restoration establishment in the 1670s.

Johannes Brahms' consolatory Ein deutsches Requiem receives a fresh and considered interpretation from Daniel Reuss and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. This renowned orchestra took the decision - following the death, some years back, of Frans Brüggen - to retain it's founder's dynamic process of alternating concert tours with recordings. And dispensing with the need for having a principal conductor, the orchestra now works with a range of musicians according to the repertoire being performed. Such a conductor is Daniel Reuss, who is also the artistic director of the Cappella Amsterdam, the choir which has frequently been appearing alongside the orchestra in recent times. A well-received reading of the Beethoven Missa Solemnis involving Reuss and the orchestra was issued by Glossa in 2017 and these musical forces have now turned their attention to Johannes Brahms' pillar of religious music. Taped in the Rotterdam de Doelen concert hall this new recording involves Carolyn Sampson (soprano) and André Morsch (baritone) as it's two soloists, in a version which attempts, as far as it is possible, to get close - in terms of tonal colours, interpretation and tempi - to Brahms' original intentions. This extraordinary work, here maintaining a sweeping and moving spirit for some 70 minutes, contains texts from Martin Luther's German translation of the Bible and, it is thought, was inspired by the loss of both the composer's mother and also that of Robert Schumann.

Among the major 19th c. choral/orchestral works Sir Roger Norrington and his former Orchestra, the Radio. Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, have tackled over the years, now finally comes Brahms' InchGerman Requiem.Inch one of the most beautiful and popular sacred music works in the repertoire. Although Biblical texts are used, the piece is not in the standard church liturgical tradition. World class soloists/soprano Christina Landshamer and basso Florian Boesch are acompanied by the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart and the NDR lend their full artistic support to Mr. Norrington's interpretation ofthis work.