The Whole Music Experience

Classical   Handel/Vivaldi Dixit Dominus   La Nuova Musica David Bates and Lucy Crowe   Harmonia Mundi One of the most popular Christian music settings, Dixit Dominus (music composition for Psalms 109, or 110 in the Protestant Bible), offers baroque era vocalists a workout.  On La Nuova Musica’s recording, Dixit Dominus , conducted by David Bates, the musicians (instrumentalists and vocalists) perform Vivaldi’s third setting of the Psalms 109/110 in D major and Handel’s sober setting in G minor (going against the convention) and sandwiched between those two gems, soprano Lucy Crowe performs the 4 movements of Vivaldi’s In Furore iustissimae irae (my favorite performance on the recording). A relatively young early music choir/orchestra, La Nuova Musica has received critical acclaim and its star rose quickly into the firmament of international early music ensembles.  Certainly, this polished recording offers crystalline vocals, passio...

The Byrd Ensemble   Markdavin Obenza   In the Company of William Byrd   Scribe Records Seattle has for several decades acted as a hotbed for music communities, including an early music community that began in the 1970s.   These days, Seattle’s early music community features a few of the founders of the early music scene as well as, newcomers such the Tudor Choir, Renaissance Singers and The Byrd Ensemble, named after renaissance church music composer William Byrd.   On the ensemble’s latest recording, In the Company of William Byrd the singers explore the music of Byrd’s contemporaries and mentors who hail mostly from the European mainland. Here we have a lush recording of renaissance polyphonic singing exploring the sacred works of Philip van Wilder, a Flemish lutenist, Alfonso Ferrabosco, an Italian composer, Clemens non Papa (also covered by the Tudor Choir in a 2006 recording), Thomas Morley (English composer), and rounding off ...

Sequentia Voice of Blood Hildegard von Bingen Deutsche Harmonia Mundi/BMG Anyone interested in the healing powers of music must include at least one recording of the medieval Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen's inspired chants in his or her collection. While I personally have not experienced any healings from Hildegard's repertoire, I am inspired by this beautiful music nonetheless and have read of others experiencing personal healing from Hildegard's divinely channeled music. Others have told me of mystical experiences associated with these sacred chants. Hildegard would in our time be considered an energy or alternative healer. With no training or certification, Hildegard channeled directly from God information on healing with plants, nutrition/diet, sacred art such as mandalas she created and the sacred chants that are still being recorded today by such ensembles as Anonymous 4, Sequentia and other vocal groups. And similar to many healers and mys...

Skruk and Katie Cardenal Mass for the Man in the Street Kirkelig Kulturverksted The Norwegian choir Skruk and Latin American singer-songwriter Katie Cardenal's Misa Campesina (Mass for the Man on the Street) , possesses an inspiring message, I just don't know what it is. While the music with its Caribbean warmth, good will and splendid vocals create a unique listening pleasure, I wish that English translation had been provided. However, despite my lack of foreign language skills, the Norwegian choir and Nicaraguan musicians have created a beautiful setting for composer Carlos Mejia Godoy's Nicaraguan mass for the common people. I am well-read on the late Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda and his words about the common person, so I find myself enjoying this lively mass. And I am all too familiar with the ups and downs of Latin American politics and social causes so this recording hits home with me. The usual musical structure of a mass (kyria, gloria, etc) are included but...

photo: by Friedrun Reinhold The Hilliard Ensemble Thomas Tallis, Christopher Tye and John Sheppard ECM I learned about The Hilliard Ensemble through a Seattle-based early music ensemble, The Tudor Choir. And through this choir, I also heard about the music of Thomas Tallis and John Sheppard, if I am not mistaken. This will be the second Hilliard Ensemble recording reviewed by me (the other review appears on Cranky Crow Whole Music). While this recording is important for historical reasons as well as, the sheer beauty of the seamless voices of David James (countertenor), Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor), Steven Harrold (tenor), Gordon Jones (baritone) and Robert Macdonald (bass), I will ask you to read the scholarly liner notes which delve into that history. If you are interested in 16th century England, then your delight will double as you read about the renaissance composers and the events that surrounded them. Religious music turns some people off, which given all the dogma peo...