Classical Music II

[hectorberlioz]

Thankfully for everyone alive today, Christmas songs and carols have been around for a very very long time. Since Christianity appeared, almost. So there's a lot of music out there that is mediaval, some that was written/arranged by the Victorians, and early American Christmas music, as well as a wealth of music written by famous European composers.

I've compiled this list for your browsing and sampling pleasure .

1. "All Is Calm--the Christmas Truce of 1914."~~~~~This CD's theme is a mixing of Christmas songs and WWI-era songs. Click here to read a review

2. "Chansons Noel---Let's Sing of Christmas." This CD is a compilation of old French carols. Review and music samples here.

3. "A Christmas Festival." This CD is the child of composer/conductor John Rutter, a great modern-day writer of English choral music. His own christmas songwork shows up on this CD, interspersed with some oldies (both mediaval and modern oldies) as well as some classical classics. Should be quite a treat, right? Here

4. "A Venetian Christmas." This is a CD that attempts to reconstruct a particular service at a particular event. Namely, a Christmas service at the church of St Mark's in Venice in 1600. Most of the material is by Giovanni Gabrieli and Anonymous, but spiced up with some other stuff as well. So if you want a late-Renaissance Christmas sound, this is the way to go! Here with samples.

5. "A Mediterranean Christmas." This CD contains music from Spain, Italy, and the Middle-East. A decidedly different flavor to the music! Very unique. Reviewed Here

6. "La Bela Naissenca---Christmas Carols from Provence." More out-of-the-way unique music. Different instruments and tunes, but familiar themes. Here

7. "What If Mozart Wrote 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas?'" This CD is an arrangement of modern Christmas songs, made to sound like they were written by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, or Schubert. It's up to you to see if it is successful. In a way this CD is sort of revenge on all those artists who mucked up time-honored classics by Bach, Mozart, etc for their own vulgur interpretations. Here

8. "A Mediaval Christmas." More era-themed Christmas music. As the review says, done by professionals who are old hands at this stuff. Here

9. "Christmas With The Tallis Scholars." If you want Serene and Majestic for your Christmas music, this is the way you need to go. It's plainchant and Renaissance polyphony...two discs of some of the most beautiful singing you'll ever hear. Here

10. "Wassail Wassail! Early American Christmas Music." Time to explore some Christmas music on the West side of the Atlantic! Here

11. "A New Joy--An Orthodox Christmas." This CD brings us to Russia and the Ukraine, as we explore music of the Orthodox Church. Like most of these CDs, some of the music is anonymous/traditional while other bits are by more famous composers. In this case Tchaikovsky and Arvo Part. Here

12. "Wolcom Yule." British and Welsh carols and songs, sung by the beautifully voiced female quartet Anonymous 4. Their a cappella is now joined by Andrew King, harpist. Some old stuff with new stuff. Here

13."Handel: Messiah." Ok, even though it was written for Easter-time, there's no denying on my part that this great work is just as relevant during Christmas-time. Enjoy one of the timeless classics of music of any genre! Here

14. "Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ." Here's a work that really waas composed for Christmas-time. It is Berlioz's only Oratorio, but he poured a lot of love into it. Sample the lovely "trio pour deux flute et harpe." Here


15. "Bach: Christmas Oratorio." Aha! So you didn't know Bach also was worried about Christmas music eh? Well, he was. In fact, he was so worried that he didn't have time to write an original work, so he went through some of his church cantatas (short choral works for church) and patched up what we know as the "Christmas Oratorio." Of course Bach wasn't a sloppy worker, and he integrated and smoothed things over quite a bit. Here

[Mari]

I'd like to remark that some carols were sung before Christianity and adapted from the original Yule or Solstice songs. Even in some Christmas songs today you can see the influence of Yule. The exchanging of presents is a Yule tradition too, if I remember correctly.
Nice post. Must have cost you quite a while, putting the list together?

[hectorberlioz]

Hmph. YOu try sorting through hundreds of CDs, writing about them, and linking them properly >_< .AND having to make yourself lunch, and talk to a greedy girl who always wants hugs and music. It's hard I tell you!

[Mari]

Yes, your life is terrible. I feel for you. *nods gravely*
I notice you have no Gregorian Chant in your list? I have 3 Gregorian CD's. I wouldn't want to listen to them all in a row, but they are a nice 'breaker'.
Not recommended if you don't like chanting though.

Hmmm, maybe I'd better put this in the Christmas music thread?

[hectorberlioz]

I was going to post it in both places. But maybe you could quote my post in the other thread...

And you are wrong. Some of those CDs contain Gregorian Chant. But there is not one dedicated only to it.

[Mari]

Ah, okay. I guess I'm not the only one to think they make nice 'breakers' then

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Tessar

Just for instance there's a guy in my voice studio who has a voice that's really about medium sized, but it's very heavy and 'thick' sounding. He sounds fantastic singing Wagner. My voice is about the same size as his (maybe a little softer), but definitely not thick and heavy. I wouldn't sound very good singing Wagner, but there are other arias I can sing that he would sound clumsy trying to sing. It's not that he can't sing fast passages--his voice just sounds so thick that it doesn't sound very clean, even when he's spot on.

You hear that a lot in baroque music. Billions of mezzos want to sing it, but lots of the music requires more agility than most of them have, so they end up sounding heavy, like they're trying to squeeze their voices through doorways that are too small. They get through, but the process is cramped and uncomfortable.

This was the most interesting of the inexpensive Messiahs I found, Hec. Recreations, ho!

[hectorberlioz]

That one is supposed to be quite good. Of course I don't know, since I haven't heard it yet. Did you buy it?

EDIT: Wow. Boy trebles for choruses AND arias. Recreation indeed.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I did, but I haven't listened yet, except to excerpts. I'm going to do so today and tomorrow.

[hectorberlioz]

Even though a bunch of the "major" classical labels are the dumps, creatively speaking, we nevertheless are lucky to have the small (some not so small anymore) and more adventurous ones take on serious projects. There are three that I think merit our attention.

1. Haydn's Complete Symphonies.

Joseph Haydn wrote 104 + symphonies. That's material lasting approximately 40 hours of music. There are now three recordings of Haydn's complete symphonies. The first was acheived by Antal Dorati on the Decca label. The second on Nimbus label, whose rights were recently purchased by Brilliant Classics. The most recent completion is by Naxos. But that's not all! The German label Hanssler has already embarked on their Complete Haydn Symphonies journey with several releases.

This is an interesting phenomenon. Most people don't care about all "those other" Haydn symphonies. The famous ones are the 'London' and 'Paris' sets of symphonies. Before today's weird music market, nobody could have predicted that labels would go out of their way to record all 104 of Haydn's symphonies.

2. Bach's 200+ Church Cantatas.

This is even more amazing than the Haydn symphonies phenomenon. All of Bach's cantatas?! Were talking about hour and hours of music. 61 hours to be exact. Yet several succesful cycles have been achieved. Recordings by Helmuth Rilling on the Hanssler label, and on Brilliant Classics. There are also ongoing cycles by John Eliot Gardiner and Ton Koopman.

Are you feeling overwhelmed yet? Consider the fact recordings were invented and commercialized around short opera arias. In little over 100 years, we've come to record vast amounts of music, uncovering the lesser-known works of major composers. We now have available for purchase the complete works of Haydn and Bach, as well as Mozart, Schubert, and Handel. There's an ongoing edition for Sibelius, the first undertaken. Heck for the first time, recording a Handel opera is now seen as a promising venture!

Maybe I'll never get to listen to all that great music, but I'll sure try!

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Also noteworthy is the French label Naive, currently making a complete edition of the works of Vivaldi, with (sometimes) cool cover art.

Recording a Handel opera should ALWAYS be seen as a promising venture.

[hectorberlioz]

Yes, good point-out Gwai. I've been drooling over the Vivaldi project as well, though not over the cover art .

Harmonia Mundi seems to be doing a large Handel Opera project. And Paul McCreesh is a big advocate for his oratorios.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Well, I DID say sometimes.

Eh, oratorios not quite so much. Handel's true genius is in dramatic expression of emotions through music. Drama tends to be a bit thin in oratorios.

[hectorberlioz]

Pish posh. Are you dissing Messiah?

Hm, ok. I concede. I wasn't that impressed by Samson. Or Solomon, though I only heard that one in Thomas Beecham's cut-and-paste version.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

One of the things that I like about the Vivaldi series is that they seem more inclined, for the most part, to assign the high roles to women than countertenors. There are a handful of exceptions (like Jaroussky), but for the most part, countertenors don't really seem to get better than "good", whereas women, singing naturally, are able to excel far more. So, kudos to Naive for giving the music to the ladies.

[hectorberlioz]

Yes, a lot more flexible. And more enjoyable. Not to diss CTs too much, but I heard one in a performance of Messiah last night (with Ton Koopman directing the NY Phil etc). It just didn't work for me.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

That would be Andreas Scholl, I believe. He's a countertenor superstar, but for the life of me, I can't figure out why. Such a thin, weak sound, and apparently he has a range of like 1.5 octaves. He also is an absolutely abysmal actor. I'm really mystified by his popularity.

[hectorberlioz]

Yes, it was Scholl. So you heard the same performance then? He once said he was inspired to be a countertenor by Prince.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I did not, but I heard that he was going to be singing Messiah with Ton Koopman in New York.

[hectorberlioz]

It was a pretty nice performance, aside from Scholl.

I should also mention a finished project from the Russian conductor Yevgeny Svetlanov. He recorded all 27 symphonies of Nikolai Miaskovsky. A pretty worthy undertaking, IMO. Now if only'd someone would take on recording all 60 + symphonies of Alan Hovhaness, or the 36 symphonies of Havergal Brian .

Though recording Brian's Symphony No.1 would be quite a feat in and of itself. There's only one recording of it so far. Check out the orchestration, and you'll know why.