Raczynski / Poznan Chamber Choir - Media Vita - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The Choir of New College Oxford, one of the most acclaimed British choral ensembles, makes it's Linn debut with a recording of works by the English Renaissance composer John Sheppard. New College Choir was already 150 years old when Sheppard arrived in Oxford intent on contributing to the wealth of choral polyphony that defined the era. Media vita is his most celebrated work, almost symphonic in it's proportions, in which he combines and elevates conventional Tudor musical devices to striking effect. Sheppard's boundary-pushing polyphony requires the skill and precision of liturgical professionals, and in the hands of director Robert Quinney it is compelling. The programme is completed by several motets in which Sheppard sets text from the Old Testament; we are delighted that four of these motets are premiere recordings A solis ortus cardine, Inclina Domine, Iudica me Deus and Confitebor tibi. This is another distinctive and stylish performance from this acclaimed choir, which marks the first in a new series of recordings for Linn Records.

Is a Soft Generator a Soft Machine? Judging by the beautifully blossoming splatterpulse of the opening InchAckInch, with it's filters peeking (and peaking) over a rainbow-hued, synthetic horizon, such a generator of pillowy delight would no doubt do William Burroughs proud. The sounds percolating herein do in fact make for machines of loving grace, the effect startling enough but strangely soothing, circuits doing penance to both themselves and the worshipping listener. Midway through InchAckInch, you're taken on a tour of (post)-Namlook-like reverie, where temporal tides shift and your mind seems to literally bisect outer space; space-time folds as blips, phizzes, and squirts arc upon a very Inoue-esque soundstage, augmented by faux-dub echo that shimmers throughout and descends back to earth like steel rain. InchKnowInch brings home the beats and sequencer surge with as fine a pedigree as some newly-minted Tangerine Dream b-side, while InchOwlInch channels Delia Derbyshire and the INA-GRM crew thanks to some ingeniously-coined synthetic flutters and weirdly oxygenated chills and frills. The closing InchLedgeInch suggests the listener looks down into the electronic abyss, but what stares back isn't simply dark drones and omniscient tones; rather, there's a stately classical air that posits Ryuichi Sakamoto and Max Richter jamming in an elevator with Johann Johannsen. Funky fugue states, done with considerable aplomb, compositional vigor, and no small amount of atmospheric delight.

Zeidler is a classicist. Having formed his sound language in the early stages of this style, he became a creator of a music illuminated by the spring sun of classicism. More than thirty works of the artist have survived to our times. Although they represent only a fraction of his oeuvre, they still testify to the artist's astonishing craft. Sixteen of them have already been heard at the Gostyn festival. These were masses, litanies, Marian antiphons, songs and the requiem. The seventeenth piece in this series is Vespers for solo voices, choir and orchestra, whose musical notation has been preserved in the archives of the Gniezno Cathedral. They were performed on 5 October 2019 as the highlight of the festival programme; the recording was also made during that concert. The MUSICA SACROMONTANA Festival serves the continuation of the intentions of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri, who wanted to evangelise through the broadly understood propagation of culture. It is thanks to their efforts that in the 17th century a great ensemble was created there, and the greatest composers, including Palestrina, came to Gostyn. Many of them wrote pieces on commission of the Congregation, whereas fathers filled the library with copies of works of the greatest masters.