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World music CD DVD shop and Classic distribution
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ID: SIGCD056
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Kolektion: Vocal CollectionSubkolektion: Choir
Signum Records present a special CD release from the King’s Singers, celebrating over 35 years of popular repertoire that has left audiences delighted across the globe.
Formed in 1968 by six Choral Scholars from King’s College, Cambridge, the King’s Singers quickly became a prominent musical force in the UK. The rest of the world soon followed so that today the group’s engagements are spread throughout the four corners of the globe.
The ensemble are renowned for their commitment to blend balance and intonation in their performances, but above all it is their simple enjoyment of what they do that has captured the imagination of the public, and kept the King’s Singers at the top of their game for over three and a half decades.
This album presents six pieces performed by the six vocalists over the years. The titles were selected to span the life of the group so far: After the explosive rock decade of the 1960s in which the group was founded, you can almost hear the hair lengthen in Neil Young’s 1970 song After the Goldrush. This was originally sung by the group with Nana Mouskouri on her BBC TV show, and has remained popular ever since; Irving Berlin’s much-loved jazz classic Blue Skies is here sung in a cool and reflective arrangement by Richard Rodney Bennett; the Beatle’s Blackbird is one of the most requested encores happily sung to ecstatic audiences, and Daryl Runswick’s arrangement perfectly maintains the feel of the original song.
The remaining three tracks are all newly recorded pieces from the 21st century. Down to the River to Pray, a spiritual, appeared in the Coen brothers movie “O Brother Where art Thou?”; Billy Joel’s Lullaby Goodnight My Angel is an example of the songwriter at his lyric best. Finally, The Wishing Tree was commissioned by the King’s Singers and the BBC for the 2002 Proms, celebrating the present Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Joby Talbot, formerly of The Divine Comedy, was asked to compose a work in which to reflect Queen Elizabeth II’s life, as well as incorporating a 16th century madrigal-element, in reference to the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth. |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD083
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Kolektion: Choral CollectionSubkolektion: Choir
The Daily Express, 15th September 2006
Will Todd's Mass In Blue is a curious yet beguiling work that blends jazz and classical choral singing to stunning effect. Although it's a bit odd hearing the Kyrie and Agnus Dei sounding like something that could be drifting out of a smoky speakeasy, once you get over the shock, it's an addictive listen. |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD005
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Kolektion: Choral CollectionPhillip II of Spain died at first light on Sunday 13th September, 1598. In this anniversary year we commemorate the death of this most catholic king with music associated with him during his lifetime, and with the sumptuous six part Requiem mass of Jean Richafort that may well have been used at his obsequiries
The programme begins with a motet written by Gombert for the birth of Philip; other motets include one of Infantas' finest works Domine Ostende, and within the context of the mass is included the celebrated Versa est in luctum by Lobo. |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD003
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Kolektion: RenaissanceThis disc is the third in a series of nine covering the complete works of Thomas Tallis. Not for nothing is Tallis known as the "father of church music" - with his colleagues at the Chapel Royal he created most of the church music genres that we take for granted today.
In chronological terms Volume 3 follows on quickly from the Edwardine music of volume 2 with repertoire written for the Marian reversion to Catholicism in 1553. Here we meet Tallis the composer of music for the old English liturgy in both a modern “continental” style and a self-consciously old fashioned English style.
The music includes the extraordinary seven part mass Puer natus est nobis of 1554 and the similarly-scored motet Suscipe Quaeso. A speculative reconstruction Beati immaculati opens the disc and it concludes with the monumental six part votive antiphon Gaude Gloriosa. |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD002
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Kolektion: Choral CollectionThis disc is the second in a series of nine covering the complete works of Thomas Tallis.
As the 1540s developed, the Reformation began to take hold and the style of music required from composers such as Tallis altered radically. The large-scale melismatic votive antiphons (for example those on disc 1) were no longer required; the emphasis moved away from Marian devotion to a more syllabic and compact style and, eventually, to settings of English rather than Latin texts. Disc two traces this development from the Jesus antiphon Sancte Deus, to the mass for four voices, the three early English anthems including If ye love me, the Te Deum for meanes and the Elizabethan Magnificat and Nunc dimittis. |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD040
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Kolektion: Choral CollectionSubkolektion: Choir
Signum Records is delighted to announce that the ensemble Concerto delle Donne will release their first disc on Signum Records in 2003. The disc will feature the cantatas and motets of Giacomo Carissimi.
Carissimi is sometimes thought of as a "one-work composer" known to the average music-lover only for his oratorio Jephte. Choral Societies looking for 17th century music earlier than Purcell are therefore likely to choose Jephte.
Alastair Ross first became interested in Carissimi’s music for the 3-soprano Concerto delle Donne line-up when he was asked to prepare a programme “Handel and his predecessors in Italy” for the 1977 Göttingen Festival. A review of Carissimi's oeuvre showed that there were several pieces by Carissimi in the library of Christ Church Oxford just waiting to be performed by the group! He chose the cantata Siam tre miseri piangenti which has become a regular item in their concerts and which is central to this recording. It’s a marvellous piece, full of pain, suffering and anger. The three voices really are equal in the way they intertwine and react to one another. Donna Deam’s solo Piangete and Gill Ross' and Elin Thomas’s duet Ahi, non torna are similar in mood. Maybe in our cynical 21st century we find it difficult to relate to these highly emotional, self-obsessed, texts, but there’s no denying that they inspired some wonderful music! Va dimanda al mio pensiero’ and Si dia bando, alla speranza are lighter in mood - both attractive, tuneful pieces.
There is plenty of variety in the church music as well. Cum reverteretur David, which begins the CD, is brilliant and virtuosic, a dramatic account of the rivalry between David and Saul. The duet Exulta, gaude, filia Sion is a joyful celebration of Christmas. In Benedictus Deus et Pater the voices weave rich dissonances to convey the suffering of the text; there’s something of the mood of Allegri’s Miserere here.
In addition to the vocal pieces the disc includes a set of variations by Frescobaldi and Michelangelo Rossi’s flamboyant and chromatic Toccata Settima for harpsichord, together with Kapspereger’s charming improvisations for chittarone.
We believe that only one of the Carissimi pieces on this CD, Exulta, gaude, filia Sion, has been recorded before, so the disc will be an important event in the recorded-music world, and one which we hope will revive interest in this unjustly neglected composer. |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD026
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subkolektion: Chamber Ensemble
The paintings of Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) constitute one of the most poignant and evocative icons of Georgian England; he painted supremely accomplished portraits of a wide social spectrum, and landscapes which capture the verdancy of England prior to the Stygian advance of the Industrial Revolution.
Gainsborough’s own creativity sought expression in music as much as in painting, which was unusual in an age when musical ability was mainly considered the preserve of the ladies.
For this musical tribute to Gainsborough, we have gathered together pieces by several of his friends; Abel, J.C. Bach, Giardini, Linley & Straube. |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD036
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Kolektion: RenaissanceSubkolektion: Choir
Signum Records are proud to present the eighth and penultimate volume of Chapelle du Roi’s recording of the Complete Works of Thomas Tallis.
This volume brings together Tallis’s two masterly settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah and English adaptations of several of his best-known Latin motets.
Thomas Tallis was one of many continental and English composers who composed settings of texts from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the opening five verses of which formed part of the office of Matins (or Tenebrae) during Holy Week. Tallis’s two settings could have been performed ritually but in all likelihood they are Elizabethan works intended for use at the private devotions of staunch Catholic sympathisers.
The statutory introduction of the First Book of Common Prayer on Whitsunday, 9th June 1549 precipitated an urgent need for a repertory of service music in the vernacular. One straightforward solution to the predicament was to adapt existing Latin motets to English texts, a genre of composition that has come to be known as a contrafactum. Contrafacta survive of liturgical music by pre-Reformation English composers as well as by several composers whose working life spanned the period of Reformation.
During the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods contrafacta and their models assumed several forms of dual existence, and were performed not only within a liturgical setting but also in a domestic context for recreation or private devotion. Usually there is no textual relationship between the model and the contrafactum. Indeed the finale of this disc, Sing & Glorify heaven’s high majesty, an adaptation of Tallis’s celebrated eight-choir (40-part) motet Spem in alium was adapted to celebrate Prince Henry’s investiture as Prince of Wales in 1610. |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD025
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subkolektion: Choir
Songs and Instrumental Music by Josquin des Pres, his pupils and contemporaries. |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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