Choral Recordings To Die For

It might be time to update and upgrade your own choral recording library. When the Voice asked today's classical music broadcast personalities, "What three or four choral recordings would you take to the ends of the earth with you, and why?" they came up with the following, sometimes surprising, favorites.

Robert Aubry Davis, Station Manager, Opera-Choral-Vocal Channel, XM Satellite Radio; Creator and Host, "Millennium of Music"

Josquin Desprez: Missa Pange Lingua; Missa La sol fa re mi. The Tallis Scholars. Still the only disc of music before 1600 to win the Gramophone Magazine coveted "Record of the Year" award, it is the gold standard even now. The Mass is the symphony of the Renaissance, and Josquin the greatest composer the world produced before the birth of Bach.

Handel: Messiah. And here we say it—after a lifetime in the early music movement, and now presenting all the Handel oratorios and operas that exist on XM Radio, this is the greatest work of its age. Yes, including Bach. Sometimes, what the rest of the world embraces as great really is the greatest. There are so many good recordings - how about the great Chicago/Solti with Kiri te Kanawa leading a great quartet? This 1990 performance is feisty and furious, using the best of what the early music movement taught us with the best of modern sound.

Brahms: German Requiem. Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus. Remember the Klemperer 1961 performance with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf and the incomparable Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau? It's the performance that had Ted Libbey raving that "this really is one of the greatest recordings of the century." Even as a hard-core Brahmsian, I was stunned in my new life to realize that nearly 60 percent of the opus numbers are vocal in some way or another.

Faure: Requiem. The late, great Robert Shaw and his Atlanta forces, paired on this disc with the Durufle Requiem—what could be better? One composer, justly championed and famous, the other all but neglected except by organists and choruses: perfection.

Millennium of Music, Volume 2: Allelulia, This Swete Songe. Okay, this is cheating - a compilation disc, of early music, all for Christmas. But these are my choices. And when you can pack The Deller Consort, the Hilliard Ensemble, Les Arts Florissants, Anonymous 4, Nicholas McGegan's Philharmonia Baroque forces, the Theatre of Voices, and many more on one disc, it's heavenly to me.

[*Editor's note: Unfortunately, this recording does not appear to be available any longer.]

Fred Child, Host of NPR's "Performance Today"

Arvo Pärt: Kanon Pokajanen. Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. An 83-minute piece written in 1997 by Paert, based on scraps of music from the 8th century Slavonic Church, and sung in Church Slavonic. The mood is deeply reflective throughout this repentant meditation on the borders between the human and the divine. Lengthy passages of quiet melisma are interrupted by throaty outbursts of ecstatic four-part heartache. At once disconsolate, uplifting, and viscerally stirring.

Faure: Requiem, etc. City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, BBC Philharmonic, soloists. This entire CD has a gossamer lift to it. A profoundly affecting performance of the Faure Requiem, and two lovely Faure miniatures: the Pavane and the Cantique de Jean Racine. But also a wacky and rarely sung mythological scene, The Birth of Venus. Frankly, the text is idiotic, but Faure's music is to die for!

Josquin des Pres: Missa Pange Lingua; Missa La sol fa re mi. The Tallis Scholars. A brilliantly rhapsodic pair of masses by "the Beethoven of the 16th century," a composer who laid the contrapuntal groundwork for Bach and beyond. Melodies blossom in every direction! The Tallis Scholars use eight voices, a simple doubling of the four-part writing. It's a perfect balance of clarity and vocal blend.

Bali - Golden Rain. A 2002 re-issue of David Lewiston's classic 1966 field recording, the CD opens with 16 minutes of glittering gamelan, the Balinese percussion orchestra. Then we get what is among the most riveting choral performances on the planet: the Ramayana Monkey Chant - 200 men sitting in concentric circles, chanting a hocket-like re-enactment of a battle scene from the ancient Ramayana epic.

John Birge, Host, Afternoon Program, Minnesota Public Radio; Producer, "Giving Thanks"

Blue Wheat, The Dale Warland Singers. For the ends of the earth, I'll want a keepsake of home. Fortunately, Minnesota is home to several world-class choral groups: The Dale Warland Singers invoke heart and heartland in Blue Wheat, a 1996 collection of folk songs and spirituals. Gorgeous arrangements, velvety blend, buttery phrasing; singing that flows and glows. Starting with a "Shenandoah" that will spoil you for life, Blue Wheat grows more beautiful with every track.

Welcome Christmas - Carols and Lullabies from Around the World, VocalEssence Ensemble Singers. In Minnesota, Christmas truly arrives with Philip Brunelle's VocalEssence Welcome Christmas concert. If I had to miss the performance, the Welcome Christmas CD is essential for its surprising variety and beautiful voices. Long out of print, but look for the reissue this August. Conrad Susa's charming "Carols and Lullabies" is a VocalEssence commission.

Fire of the Soul: Choral Virtuosity in 17th-Century Russia and Poland, The Rose Ensemble. In Fire of the Soul, Twin Cities early music group The Rose Ensemble, directed by Jordan Sramek, soars in 17th-century a cappella rarities from Russia and Poland. But the unexpected treasure is a 2002 commission from a gifted Belarussian composer living in Minneapolis. Sergei Khvoschinsky's Ave Maria evokes Allegri's Miserere and Rachmaninoff's Vespers. Timeless, mystical, unforgettable.

Robert Cooper, Executive Producer, Opera and Choral Music, CBC Radio Two

In the 1970s, while a conducting student living in Germany, I loved to browse with envy the record shops, amazed at the incredible wealth of music that record companies were producing with seeming abandon. My funds were sparse, so looking, touching, and anticipating the hidden musical delights that lay within each album had to satiate my curiosity. But one day temptation got the better of me. I came across two incredible, handsome EMI box sets of the Rundfunkchor Stockholm and Stockholmer Kammerchor under their renowned conductor Eric Ericson, performing a vast panoply of choral treasures: 500 Years of European Choral Music and Virtuoso Choral Music. Eight albums, sixteen sides of superb and sublime a cappella performances of a diverse repertoire encompassing everything from Italian Renaissance madrigals, German romantic motets, and French chansons to 20th-century masterpieces by Schoenberg, Martin, Strauss, Pizzetti...and so much more! Sadly, the wear and tear of repeated use and the inevitable demise of my turntable meant that these magnificent recordings were relegated to collect dust along with all the other vinyl recordings.

That is until now! Stan Schmidt, the dedicated choral maven from Omaha, CD distributor and president of Collegium USA and Clarion Records, has preserved these recordings on his Clarion label. Now there are six CD's, 43 choral masterpieces by 27 composers and close to seven hours of remarkable choral performances that by today's standards, some 30 years since their initial release, can still be considered as groundbreaking in every respect. These digital transfers offer a clarity of aural luxury hidden up to now...the legendary Swedish sound is resplendent, the surrounding acoustic is open, comfortable, and complementary and the interpretive finesse is all the more awe-inspiring!

500 Years of European Choral Music. This collection offers spirited madrigals by Dowland, Byrd, and Morley next to the fulsome motets of Brahms and Reger; Italian contrasts with Gesualdo, Monteverdi, Rossini, and Petrassi and French subtlety from the likes of Debussy, Poulenc, Ravel, and Badings. And if that were not enough, Ericson throws in the monumental Strauss Deutsche Motette, Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden, plus works by Martin, Edlund, and Britten to complete his choral survey.

Virtuoso Choral Music. The equally impressive Virtuoso Choral Music collection introduces us to the significant choral works of Luigi Dallapiccola, Lars Johan Werle, Krzysztof Penderecki, Andre Jolivet, and Olivier Messiaen along with more exacting performances of works by Poulenc, Reger, Martin, and Strauss.

These are indeed "desert island" choral collections that will continue to surprise and satisfy every lover of fine choral music. Thanks to Stan Schmidt and his resourceful perseverance we are all once again able to wonder anew at the exquisite legacy of the Swedish choral phenomenon and its legendary maestro Eric Ericson.

This article is adapted from The Voice, Fall 2004.