FREE UK SHIPPING OVER £30!

Poulenc - Gloria, Christmas Motets; Saint-Saens - Messe a 4 voix | Australian Eloquence ELQ4828798

Poulenc - Gloria, Christmas Motets; Saint-Saens - Messe a 4 voix

Label: Australian Eloquence

Cat No: ELQ4828798

Barcode: 0028948287987

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 3rd November 2017

This product has now been deleted. Information is for reference only.

Contents

Artists

Sylvia Greenberg (soprano)
Wayne Williams (tenor)
Choeur de la Radio Suisse Romande
Choeur Pro Arte de Lausanne
L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
Simon Colston (treble)
Anthony de Rivaz (countertenor)
John Vickers (countertenor)
Trevor Owen (tenor)
Brian Harvye (bass)
Roy Massey (grand orgue)
Paul Trepte (petit orgue)
Worcester Cathedral Choir

Conductors

Jesus Lopez-Cobos
Simon Preston
Donald Hunt

Works

Poulenc, Francis

Gloria
Motets (4) pour le temps de Noel

Saint-Saens, Camille

Messe a 4 voix, op.4

Artists

Sylvia Greenberg (soprano)
Wayne Williams (tenor)
Choeur de la Radio Suisse Romande
Choeur Pro Arte de Lausanne
L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
Simon Colston (treble)
Anthony de Rivaz (countertenor)
John Vickers (countertenor)
Trevor Owen (tenor)
Brian Harvye (bass)
Roy Massey (grand orgue)
Paul Trepte (petit orgue)
Worcester Cathedral Choir

Conductors

Jesus Lopez-Cobos
Simon Preston
Donald Hunt

About

Joining Poulenc’s Gloria (Jesus Lopez-Cobos) and Saint-SaensMass for Four Voices (Donald Hunt) is the first CD release of Poulenc’s Four Christmas Motets (Simon Preston).

Camille Saint-Saens was only 21 years of age when he wrote his Mass Op.4, but the craftsmanship of both its vocal and instrumental writing, testifies to the accomplishment of an experienced composer at a tender age: as a prodigious student at the Paris Conservatoire he was awarded a first prize in organ at just sixteen years old, when he began to take composition seriously. The four vocal parts of this Mass are balanced against the exciting combination of two organs (large and small) offered by the disposition of many French Gothic cathedrals.

Liszt claimed that the work was the most striking of any contemporary works in this genre, both for its religious character and for its technical mastery. The recording reissued here was made for Decca in February 1978 by the Choir of Worcester Cathedral under their long-standing organist and choirmaster, Donald Hunt. Among French composers of the following generation, Francis Poulenc was unusual in combining an irreverent attitude towards musical tradition and authority with a Catholic faith much deeper and more sincere than that of Saint-Saens: ‘half monk, half thug’, as the critic Claude Rostand once remarked of Poulenc.

This bore fruit in several liturgical collections including four motets for Christmas-tide, recorded in April 1973 by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, during Simon Preston’s tenure as their Music Director. The original coupling on the Argo LP was Stravinsky’s Mass, which has also been reissued recently by Eloquence (ELQ4828099). The joyful, festive theme of this unique compilation is continued by the Gloria which Poulenc wrote late in life. This is a digital recording from 1982, made in the classic Decca venue of Victoria Hall, Geneva. Here they are conducted by Jesus Lopez-Cobos, who had already begun an enduring relationship with Swiss ensembles which would bear fruit from 1990 in a decade-long leadership of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra.

‘The choir acquits itself very well ... Argo has coped with the unfamiliar locale in spectacular fashion, capturing the organ in all its glory, yet balancing it nicely with the sound of the choir ... Not to be overlooked.’ - Fanfare, May/June 1980 (Saint-Saens)

‘It has the special French bonus of parts for grand and petit orgue (here splendidly played by Roy Massey and Paul Trepte) which add colour and interest to what is already a vivid performance.’ - Musical Times, March 1979 (Saint-Saens)

‘Poulenc’s Gloria receives an idiomatic performance that rivals the best the piece has received.’ - Fanfare, May/June 1983

Error on this page? Let us know here

Need more information on this product? Click here