£8.00 – £12.00
The BBC Singers continue their critically lauded and award- nominated series of composer-led recordings with a new disc of works by Master of the Queen’s Music Judith Weir.
Recorded in the unique acoustic of the Temple Church, London, the BBC Singers are joined by the church’s choristers and the contemporary music ensemble Endymion, in a retrospective of Weir’s works drawn from a 25-year period.
” a gorgeous, rounded sound…it works very well indeed.” BBC Radio 3 CD Review, June 2015
“The performances are as expert as you would expect, with the BBC Singers under their very experienced choral director David Hill…A lovely disc.quot; Music Web International, June 2015
” Clarity of thought and texture is apparent.” Gramophone, July 2015
“The bright, jangling soundworld of Judith Weir’s All the Ends of the Earth immediately cleanses the aural palate.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2015
“5* [The BBC Singers ensemble] is on top of everything on this splendid disc… a significant addition to the too-small Weir discography.” Choir & Organ, Autumn 2015
BBC Singers
Endymion
Choristers of Temple Church
David Hill conductor
Release date:4th May 2015
Order code:SIGCD421
Barcode: 635212042120
| The bright, jangling soundworld of Judith Weir?s All the Ends of the Earth immediately cleanses the aural palate: gleaming divided sopranos, structural punctuation from the tenors and basses, and tinkling tuned percussion transmit the joyful celebration of the natural world in the Psalm-based text. The tactic of writing lavish passages of fioritura for the upper voices is possibly overdone a little, though these are managed buoyantly by the singers. In Missa del Cid, a narrator interpolates spoken material about the military exploits of the 11th-Century warrior Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar. The juxtaposition with the music works better than you might imagine, and there?s some particularly effective writing in the opening Kyrie, where Moorish and Christian factions contend in curdled fashion, and in the fractured aftermath of battle which is the Agnus Dei. Storm, setting texts from Shakespeare?s The Tempest, returns to the shimmering textures of All the Ends of the Earth, adding flutes and cellos to percussion to conjure the swell of waves and waft of magic that permeate the poetry. The writing for choir of trebles (paired with women?s voices) is specially evocative in the crystalline ?While you here do snoring lie?, where the insistent ticking of time is cleverly mimicked in the accompaniment for plucked cellos and tinkling percussion. The brief Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis and The Song Sung True are useful makeweights, and the BBC Singers bring their versatility and execution to the table.
Terry Blain |
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