Birds of the Psalms
Cappella Clausura/Amelia LeClair
Navona Records 6176
Total Time:  51:50
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

This beautiful new release of choral music features Capella Clausura.  Amelia LeClair founded the ensemble in 2004 with one of its goals to promote the work of women composers.  For this new release, LeClair has focused on music inspired by Biblical psalms.  The album takes its title from a new work by Patricia van Ness which opens the album.

Ness’s Birds of the Psalms is a collection of 10 psalm settings that have avian imagery and this idea of the divine depicted by a bird, or a bird protected by the divine.  Dove imagery is a common component of the ancient Biblical texts in both Jewish and Christian traditions.  Among them is this image of the sheltering bird which is a common theme in six of the texts used here.  Her music here takes its inspiration as well from ancient church modes and the more melismatic settings upon which harmonies themselves occur naturally across the linear presentation of the text.  This might make the words themselves more difficult to discern at times, but it creates a rather rich wash of sound.  There is some nice word painting along the way (for example on “quakes” in the Psalm 55 setting).  The music itself overall bears close resemblance to Morten Lauridsen’s style.  Each movement helps highlight different voices creating a nice variety.  The male vocal setting of Psalm 17 adds a deep, rich plea to the text that becomes more angelic once the female voices are then added (the female voices get a similar chance in the setting of Psalm 61).  In the following setting of Psalm 57, the Latin text adds a further ancient feel.  The vocal lines as well are written in a late Medieval quality with nice imitation occurring that can bring us to some quite stunning dissonances that add an extra emotional punch.  Things move along a bit more in the seventh movement’s setting of Psalm 148 with its creeping things.  It requires some fun effects as well which add some challenge to the music and a bit of necessary energy.

The program is filled out with beautiful renditions of Tchaikovsky’s setting of the Kiev Chant, “Svete Tihiy”, and two selections from Rachmaninov’s Vespers (“Blagoslovi, dushe moya” and “Blazhen muzh”).  These give us samples of the rich Eastern Orthodox church styles explored by these composers.  A couple of classic English anthems also appear.  First is Purcell’s brief “Hear My Prayer” followed by Weelke’s “When David Heard”.  The program closes with a setting by an Eastern Roman abbess, one of the first female medieval composers, Kassia (810-856) allowing us a window into the very beginnings of this choral tradition explored fittingly on this album.

The album was recorded at the groups May 2016 concerts in the Boston area.  Audience noise is quite minimized apart from applause at the end of the Ness and the final work.  The church settings lend a sense of the sort of rich sound that can be attained in these spaces, always hard to capture in a recording but Navona’s engineers have managed to give the listener a real sense of sitting in the midst of a cathedral to wallow in the gorgeous music presented here.

Reese: The Mitten
Kathryn Guthrie, soprano; Thea Lobo, mezzo-soprano; Luke Grooms, tenor; Kellie Van Horn, mezzo-soprano; Paul Soper, baritone; Andrea Chenoweth, soprano; David Salsbery Fry, bass; Neal Ferreira, tenor;
The Shakespeare Concerts Ensemble
Arcadia Players
Kevin Owen, French horn;
Ian Watson, harpsichord.
SangYoung Kim, piano. John McGinn, piano. Victor Cayres, piano.
Navona Records 6134
Total Time:  64:47
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

How many ways can one set Shakespeare?  This sixth release in The Shakespeare Concert Series provides one answer with a number of settings from the bard’s plays (As You Like It, Hamlet, Love’s Labours Lost, Hamlet, Twlefth Night, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice), a sonnet, and settings of texts by John Fletcher and John Donne.

The album is bookended by more recent music by the series founder, Joseph Summer.  It begins with a “Concert Overture” for piano (well-performed here by SangYoung Kim.  It’s turbulent music sets the stage for the overarching theme, “No Enemy But Winter and Rough Weather.”

The songs cover music from the Renaissance (Thomas Morley) to the present day.  Most interesting are two settings of “Under the Greenwood Tree”.  William Walton’s is the more familiar perhaps with its very measured approach that is of that newer English Renaissance of the 20^th Century.  The piece was written in 1936 for a film version of As You Like It.  Then we are treated to the first of three of Four Shakespeare Songs, Op. 31 (1937-41) included on the disc.  This music by Korngold is firmly couched in late-Romanticism.  His setting of “When Birds Do Sing” adds a more comical style where the piano provides little motivic touches to the vocal line.  This is contrasted with Morley’s own setting. Interesting comparisons to be made between the two composers who are more similar than one might anticipate.  The chamber ensemble setting of Peter Warlock’s “Sleep” makes for a slightly more operatic moment, though the music itself winds around modal harmonies.  Settings of “Blow, Blow, though winter wind” provide interesting contrast between a setting by Arne, and then Korngold.  The Arcadia Players return for two fascinating settings by Dominick Argento (“Winter” and “Dirge”) from his Six Elizabethan Songs, a bit more operatic in style.  Donald Busarow’s setting of “Death, Be Not Proud” is a rather fascinating approach.  The music if set for soprano, French horn, and piano.  The latter draws out the dramatic and emotional undercurrent of the text.  The others are almost in a dialogue that take inspiration one from the other with the French Horn providing some truly beautiful lyric moments.  These become the counterpoint to the equally compelling soprano line.

The last five pieces are all by Joseph Summer.  The stormy and darker music of the opening piano piece find a counterpart in the setting of “Sonnet LX” and “O, that this too too solid flesh”.  The text moves through a sort of contemporary recitative-like moment with spots of more operatic heights.  The latter moves well through this famous Hamlet soliloquy.  Summer’s setting of a scene from The Tempest follows here with an ensemble cast.  It is perhaps one of the highlights of his own work presented on the disc providing a window into a chamber opera.  These and the following songs feature some excellent accompaniment that tends towards more modern harmony with flashes of gorgeous lyricism.

The overall flow of this album works quite well.  Though the texts may be identical in some cases, this allows for excellent comparisons to how composers of different times and styles approach text setting.  Summer’s own music is equally dramatic and serves to bookend these other works quite well while also showing off his own style.  An interesting album that has much to offer for fans of art song and worthy repertoire to become familiar with as well.