RIAS Kammerchor: Christmas!
£16.10
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Label: Harmonia Mundi
Cat No: HMC902170
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Christmas
Release Date: 28th October 2013
Contents
Works
Motets (2), op.74Virga Jesse floruit, WAB52
Ich lag in tiefster Todesnacht
Nun liebe Seel, nun ist es Zeit
Ubers Gebirg Maria geht
Ave Maris Stella
Die Nacht ist vorgedrungen
Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Motets (6) for double chorus, op.79
Motets (4) pour le temps de Noel
Salve Regina
Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen
In dulci jubilo
Hodie Christus natus est
Artists
RIAS KammerchorConductor
Hans-Christoph RademannWorks
Motets (2), op.74Virga Jesse floruit, WAB52
Ich lag in tiefster Todesnacht
Nun liebe Seel, nun ist es Zeit
Ubers Gebirg Maria geht
Ave Maris Stella
Die Nacht ist vorgedrungen
Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Motets (6) for double chorus, op.79
Motets (4) pour le temps de Noel
Salve Regina
Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen
In dulci jubilo
Hodie Christus natus est
Artists
RIAS KammerchorConductor
Hans-Christoph RademannAbout
The great painters have always known how to combine the different perspectives of the Nativity into a single picture. Here the RIAS Kammerchor tells the Christmas Story in music: Mendelssohn frames the painting, to which the darkness and the promise of heavenly light form the background. The Virgin Mary leads us to the heart of Christmas Night and to rejoicing at the Saviour’s birth. We come full circle with the Four Motets of Poulenc, which sum up all the facets of Christmas and its emotions.
Founded in 1948 under the auspices of ‘Radio in the American Sector’, the RIAS Kammerchor played an important role in the revival of post-war musical life in Berlin. The core of its repertoire is the music of the Baroque era, together with the modern classics and the music of today. It swiftly acquired an international reputation for premiering new works by such composers as Penderecki, Reimann, Kagel, Gundermann and Tan Dun.
Following on from Uwe Gronostay, Marcus Creed and Daniel Reuss, Hans-Christoph Rademann has directed the ensemble since 2007, in close collaboration with Concerto Köln, Freiburger Barockorchester, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, with such conductors as Frans Brüggen, Roger Norrington, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, René Jacobs and Philippe Herreweghe.
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Mendelssohn - Frohlocket, ihr Völker auf Erden
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2Gronostay - Die Nacht ist vorgedrungen
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3Eccard - Ich lag in tiefster Todesnacht
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4Bruch - In der Christnacht
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5Brahms - O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf
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6Eccard - Nun liebe Seel, nun ist es Zeit
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7Eccard - Über's Gebirg Maria geht
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8Part - Magnificat
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9Bruckner - Ave Maria
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10Bruckner - Virga Jesse
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11Poulenc - Salve Regina
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12Grieg - Ave maris stella
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13Sweelinck - Hodie Christus natus est
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14Praetorius - In dulci jubilo
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15Praetorius - Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
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16Poulenc - O magnum mysterium (4 Motets)
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17Poulenc - Quem vidistis pastores dicite (4 Motets)
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18Mandyczewski - Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
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19Poulenc - Videntes stellam (4 Motets)
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20Poulenc - Hodie Christus natus est (4 Motets)
Europadisc Review
Mendelssohn's radiantly joyful Froholocket ihr Völker auf Erden, op.79/1, serves as a 'frame' to what follows, and then comes a group of settings on the theme of night/darkness and light. They include a sensitive setting by the late Uwe Gronostay (a former conductor of the RIAS Kammerchor) of a text by Jochen Klepper, Die Nacht is vorgedrungen, whose words were written in December 1937 at a time when Klepper and his Jewish wife Johanna faced ostracism by the Nazi regime. This is followed by works from the early Baroque (Johann Eccard's hymn Ich lag in tiefer Todesnacht) and high Romantic eras (Bruch's richly inward In der Christnacht and Brahms's astonishing variations on the Advent hymn O Heiland, reiss die Himmel auf). Eccard's Nun liebe Seel, nun ist es Zeit is a call to action that mirrors the departure of the shepherds: 'Lead us on thy paths, / That thy countenance / And thy splendid light / We may ever behold.'
The emotional heart of the programme is a sequence of works on a Marian theme which starts with Eccard's Über's Gebirg Maria geht, followed by an exquisitely sensitive and intense performance of Arvo Pärt's Magnificat. Two marvellous Bruckner motets, Ave Maria and Virga Jesse floruit, are treated to heaven-storming performances that must rank among the best on disc, while Poulenc's setting of Salve Regina has an unmistakably French delicacy to it, and Grieg's Ave maris stella is striking in its Romantic opulence.
Returning to more familiar seasonal sounds, the theme of rejoicing is taken up in three more pieces from the early Baroque, Sweelinck's Hodie Christus natus est and Michael Praetorius's In dulci jubilo and Es ist ein Ros entsprungen.
In all this music, the renowned RIAS Kammerchor of Berlin is without peer: well-blended, refined and joyous, yet strongly focused and without that preciousness that can occasionally mar recordings by English choirs. Their performances of the Germanic items in particular are predictably fine, but the real treasure here is a searching, wonderfully shaped account of Poulenc's remarkable Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël, in which care is lavished not just on the phrasing, balance, dynamics and intonation, but also on the idiomatic francophone pronunciation of the Latin texts.
The disc is rounded off with – what else? – that perennial favourite Stille Nacht, in a version by Brahms's friend Eusebius Mandyczewski. All in all, a rather special mix of the familiar and the enterprising, and an ideal stocking-filler for your musical friends or, indeed, yourselves!
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