Choral Music: s/d

monteverdi - 1610 vespers
http://www.amazon.com/Monteverdi-Vespro-Vergine-Venetian-Vespers/dp/B000031WJB/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-2640415-3062866?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1193803433&sr=1-1

brumel - missa 'et ecce terrae motus'
http://www.amazon.com/Brumel-terrae-Sequentia-Huelgas-Ensemble/dp/B00006GO7C

gesualdo
http://www.amazon.com/Gesualdo-Tenebrae-Carlo/dp/B000025YNV
http://www.amazon.com/Gesualdo-Madrigals-additional-Magrigals-Luzzaschi/dp/B00004YS4E/ref=sr_1_1/105-2640415-3062866?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1193803484&sr=1-1

runzelstirn & gurgelstock - for 40 fingernails and 4 thumbscrews

chant cistercien, gregorian chant, conducted by marcel peres
http://www.amazon.com/Chant-Cistercien-Monodies-Century-Ensemble/dp/B00001NTI0/ref=sr_1_2/105-2640415-3062866?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1193803623&sr=1-2

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41A094PG4QL._SS500_.jpg

& I'll still take the close-mic'd buzzing psychedelic Singcircle version of Stockhausen's Stimmung from 1982 over the new Paul Hillier recording which turns the piece into vewy pwetty NPR-ready music you can sleep through

Those sound like great recs. You are a godsend.

Right now I'm at the stage with this stuff where I just love-the-sounds-of-it, even less discerning than usual as far as performance goes, ending up at some kind of sustained intensity with the programming. Some discs that have struck me are:

This set of Johannes Ockeghem masses/requiems by Hillard, then Machaut's Mirror of Narcissus.

Really must look for some Russian medieval stuff.

Modern-wise there is a CD of Brian Ferneyhough's choral music released earlier in the year. Haven't heard that, but I'm fairly familiar with "Missa Brevis" from '68 or so - sharp corners on that but quite fair, one of his very best. Finnissy's "Sacred Motets" is another that is tied to the past and makes sure to make the point.

Another good one is Carola Bauckholt's "Nein Allein". There is a whole bunch of choral pieces where someone or other will go 'haha' at some point like a schizo. They bear some relation to Stimmung but they don't look as eastwards, I think. Dieter Schenebel "Fur Stimmen.." is the king of the crop, with Kagel forming a triangle of central European composers that everyone oughta learn to love.

Try to cover a cpl more w/instrumental sections but I think I wanna listen again first.

bonus points if anyone can recommend anything available on emusic

miss luba

missA luba, that is.

I did the Monteverdi Vespers when I was in college; it was one of the best concerts I've ever done.

I also cannot recommend Frank Martin's "Mass for Double Chorus" enough; it's maybe my favorite choral work of all time (competing with Bach's motets and Herbert Howells' "Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing").

The Choir Practice

Guy Reibel - "Choeurs imaginaires"

Reibel uses an electroacoustic device that multiplies a soloist's voice infinitely, creating "imaginary choirs". Chaotic, but beautiful.

Messiaen's "Cinq Rechants"

Debussy's "Sirenes"

The second movement of Schnittke's "Concerto for Choir"

Rachmaninov's "Vespers"

I've been heavily into Mahler's Symphony No. 8 this week. The choral interplay on it is wonderful stuff, waves of voices crashing against each other.

But honestly, is there anything greater than the opening choir of the St. John Passion?

Renaissance choral on eMusic:

This is the Ockeghem CD you need.
Pierre de la Rue - Missa L'homme Arme.
Josquin's Missa Pange lingua is essential. Don't know what this recording's like though.

Also search: Thomas Tallis (esp the masses), William Byrd. If you want a bit edgier and earlier, look for Dufay or Machaut. And, earlier still, Perotin is your man.

For twentieth-century English choral, this Herbert Howells CD is essential. Also worth looking up Peter Warlock in a similar vein.

Also, this is another good CD of Part choral.

Wow, complete Thomas Tallis on eMusic.

Josquin Desprez (1440-1521) - I heard his music in a video art piece recently and it was the most beautiful sacred choral music I can remember.

OH MY GOD I NEED THAT HOWELLS CD.

Actually that entire Renaissance post is OTM. EVERYONE GO GET THAT SHIT, IT'S ALL AMAZING.

Thomas Tallis - Spem In Alium

I just got the Naxos release of this and it's excellent. Another Motet on it called 'Salve Intemerata' is just as wonderful as the massive 40-voice Spem In Alium itself.

Also going to big up my find of the year again here, which is Silvestrov's 'Sacred Works' CD on ECM. I'm always mentioning it now, but I still can't get over it; folks should hear.

Quite surprised that there isn't a Thomas Tallis thread on here though. Maybe we should have one? Is he worth talking about some more? I'd certainly be up for more discussion and suggestions as this is the first I've heard. I was afraid it might be too 'medieval', though I'm not even entirely sure what I may have meant by that, but no, it's right up my street wonderful.

I quite enjoy a bit of Thomas Tallis & William Byrd

My ears are open for Tallis suggestions...

bach: cantatas

Some favorites (not strictly for solo chorus):

Janáček - Glagolitic Mass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_4dowHwXfw

Feldman - Rothko Chapel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2ZusxdmVWM

Ligeti - Lux Aeterna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgRZnsAgKng

Scelsi - Uaxuctum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GZgbt9sTcY

Now this thread has made me late for work!

Josquin's Missa Pange lingua is essential.

― Tim R-J, Thursday, November 1, 2007 4:44 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

just discovered this piece

I'm clearly going to be listening to this a lot

Just putting in a good word for Beethoven's Choral Fantasy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYMsfOmcStQ

Being in a choir that sang this was like being on the most amazing drug ever. Especially with Ignat Solzhenitsyn on the piano...

Wow, Scelsi's "Uaxuctum" is incredible!

yeah that one's a piece all right

Giacinto Scelsi C/D S/D?

Thanks.

I would like to hear some more folk choral music. I mean not just sacred harp choirs. been listening to fijian church music and it is crazy beautiful.

plax, i recommend the rustavi choir's georgian voices album, which is on spotify -- if you like the georgian folk bit in kate bush's "hello earth," this is along the same lines.

reviving thread because i'm practicing for a christmas concert and have choral music on the brain. one of the tunes we're doing, howells' "a spotless rose," i can't stop listening to on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8nlryCOomI

>rustavi choir's georgian voices album

seriously beautiful album

on the same curve, this record by Hamlet Gonashvili actually has a performance of Tsintskaro (i.e. the piece Kate incorporated into 'Hello Earth'): http://www.amazon.com/Hamlet-Gonashvili/dp/B0031C96B8/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1349730363&sr=1-1&keywords=Hamlet+Gonashvili

& seconding Julio's mention of Gothic Voices' Machaut recording 'The Mirror of Narcissus':

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mirror-Narcissus-Secular-Guillaume/dp/B000002ZGV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVhKorYWbIw

that's funny, recently i was listening to "songs of survival: traditional music of georgia" and got kind of obsessed with this women's ensemble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bh5AGiU5DdI

dammit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh5AGiU5DdI

that is great. they seem to have a record from 1996 which looks good.

on the other side of the black sea, if you have worn out the Mystère des Voix Bulgares cds, Eva Quartet = four graduates of that ensemble, their album 'Harmonies' is a modern sounding update -- as a quartet you can really follow the lines, and the close miked recording makes the dissonances in the music pop and fry, closer to Maryanne Amacher than anything you're used to hearing from choral music

http://www.elen-music.com/art009en.php

you don't hear the fry as much from this room recording, but here they are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJbxgh71nBM&feature=related

on the russian choral folk tip, there's the 1954 piatnitsky chorus russian folk songs: songs and dances of central russia record on smithsonian folkways. "oh, mists and dew" is my favorite, but also the least jocular.

http://www.folkways.si.edu/piatnitsky-chorus-and-orchestra/russian-folk-songs-songs-and-dances-of-central-russia/world/music/album/smithsonian

I heard Britten's War Requiem last friday in copenhagen. It was obviously brilliant. In general, I'd recommend a lot of Britten's choral stuff.

Keep an eye out for a new composer out of Harvard named Carson Cooman. He's doing really fantastic things with choral music and organ.

i've been obsessed with cristobal de morales's officium defunctorum lately — so fucking gorgeous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLPgDL0KZeM&feature=related

huh, embed didn't work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLPgDL0KZeM&feature=related

tavener's "the lamb" is my jamb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyBp9hrzDQE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay4gFl3wgd4

whoa that is so cool and beautiful

my group has a short performance tomorrow that we're pretty under-rehearsed for, but we're doing:

the james erb arrangement of "shenandoah"
gorecki's "szeroka woda" ("broad waters")
janacek's "kacena divoka"
charles villiers stanford's "the blue bird"
r. vaughan williams' arrangement of "the turtle dove"

This selection of songs based on the work of Rabelais is a great lil grab bag of music from the Renaissance.

Or so it seems, making my way through now

Its chansons mixed with proper choral mass material so if you don't quite know where you are w/Renaissance this is a good one to go and for those who do its a great idea as Rabelais is the kind of figure that can support both the high and low notions of culture as framed today (mostly by idiots).

Not all choral but goes against the grain of Gesualdo as lone murderin' genius pushing against it all.

that CD hasn't moved more than a foot from my CD player for the last four years, it's beautiful

may i pimp my group? i think we did a nice job on this tarik o'regan piece. i wish the sound quality of the video were better and the children's choir in front of us were sitting up straighter, but it's about the music, maaan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuR3mW5VIUM&feature=share&list=TL_CTHG50YIPE

i'm on the right, standing to the immediate right of the tall blonde woman.

awesome! beautiful stuff.

aww, thanks.

this is the whole concert from that night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpobFemmzFY&feature=share&list=UUlTuDxulWbO2llGT4c5WLGw

i really like our "and both shall row" (a treatment of "shenandoah"/"the water is wide"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7Yu9H-2nTs&list=UUlTuDxulWbO2llGT4c5WLGw

may seem like a strange request, but looking for modern (ie 20th C and later) choral music that is sung in straight tone/non-vibrato. Per Norgard's Libra, for its choral sections, is an example, but curious what other specific pieces/composers or ensembles I should look for

There are a ton of mostly straight-tone groups out there; look especially in Boston and the UK.

Voces 8: https://play.spotify.com/album/6lS5mutdPdnySUumtZoMGI
Roomful of Teeth: https://play.spotify.com/album/3lwMLjUsXxJhhb1ge2YXl8/1m2zP4pjwBnuYdAw5gWywR
Lorelei Ensemble: https://play.spotify.com/artist/3j8aHLMgmkLIZOcQMm0w07
The Sixteen: https://play.spotify.com/album/0b3z2kxSoPzefeLAVCpy5q
Choir of King's College, Cambridge: https://play.spotify.com/album/0yFxZ2bf78d6RlgLCYMCz6
Tenebrae: https://play.spotify.com/album/4opHOCZkgPmEs9aq2H0FJt

wow thank you

That's just scratching the surface really; like I said, a lot of the groups coming out of the UK and Boston will fit this description, the UK due to cultural inclination towards straight-tone and Boston as a city that focused on straight-tone as part of early music performance and then expanded it to new music.

Ah, Roomful of Teeth. Love Caroline Shaw, and their records. Partita is the one modern choral piece I want to do, but it seems far to difficult.

yeah, it depends on the group really -- our group's director encourages it quite a bit. (it's been kind of rough vocally because they have me singing alto this year thanks to our having like four or five, and my voice just doesn't do that so readily there)

How many on this board are choir singers? What are you singing?

We had our first rehearsal for the christmas program today. Poulenc, mostly. We're also singing Messiaen, though the sheet music hasn't arrived yet. + Whitacre, Lauridsen, and all that kind of crap... And oh, I think we're doing La Boheme next year! As in, on stage, in costume. That'll be the first time ever I've gotten to do that :)

a couple of rehearsals left until our christmas programs. among a lot of other repertoire we're doing the Magnificats by Pergolesi, Schutz and Pärt, then the six bach motets in the spring

Ah, Pärt's Magnificat, loved singing that as well. Though it gave me a headache, lol.

Oh hey, the album 'Folketoner' from The Norwegian Girls Choir which I got one other ilxor to vote for in last year's year-end poll has been nominated for a Grammy in some niche category.

A review: https://www.allmusic.com/album/folketoner-mw0003146791

Here's a video of them doing a nice thing this year in the trad. folk vein of the album, with a great solo to start

https://www.facebook.com/detnorskejentekor/videos/1253045431529328/

This bangs, that note at 52", shivers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG6gHxblWdk

This fucking bangs too -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aevv6hvuIaM