Choral music: 10 of the best recordings from the past 10 years
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Outstanding recording of works by Mozart, Cage, JS Bach, Buxtehude and more, from the Latvian Radio Choir, Bach Collegium Japan and Vox Luminis
Every year, we present our Choral Award to an outstanding recording of choral music, voted for by our panel of critics. From Cage's choral works (this year's Award-winner) to Mozart's Requiem in 2014, here is a sample of choral performance and recording at its finest. We've included links to the original Gramophone reviews of each album, should you wish to explore further, as well as opportunities to listen via Apple Music.
2023
Cage Choral works
Latvian Radio Choir / Sigvards Kļava (Ondine)
‘One is unsurprised by the unconventionality but taken aback by the richness and variety of the final musical result. It must be said as well that the singers sound as though they are enjoying themselves enormously.’
2022
JS Bach St Matthew Passion
Soloists; Pygmalion / Raphaël Pichon (Harmonia Mundi)
‘From the outset the listener is under no illusions that Pichon is ambitious for shining revelation. Pygmalion are primed. The opening chorus throws wide its doors with a tantalising blend of circumspection and purpose: we are invited to witness this metaphoric wedding procession in a luminous choreography of past and present protagonists – Jesus’s time and ours (and include Bach’s in that).’
2021
Dussek Messe Solemnelle
Stefanie True, Helen Charlston, Gwilym Bowen, Morgan Pearse, Choir of the AAM, Academy of Ancient Music / Richard Egarr (AAM Records)
‘Dussek himself could scarcely have hoped for a performance as fine as this one, with the Academy on top form, a well-drilled choir of 20 clearly in thrall to Egarr’s infectious enthusiasm for the work and four finely matched soloists imparting plenty of personality.’
2020
Bach St Matthew Passion
Bach Collegium Japan / Masaaki Suzuki (BIS)
‘There are dimensions of engagement between singers and instrumentalists that instil a sense of spontaneity in the variety and richness of timbre which I hadn’t heard to this extent in Bach Collegium Japan. The bass lines drive the music forwards, the crowd scenes declaim with quicksilver interpolations to the Evangelist’s cries and tempos are allowed to push and pull at key moments. Generic early music politesse is relegated to the shadows.’
2019
Buxtehude ‘Abendmusiken’
Ensemble Masques / Olivier Fortin; Vox Luminis / Lionel Meunier (Alpha)
‘This, then, is music of expressive variety and flexibility, ideally suited to the skills of Vox Luminis, whose name on a release these days is enough in itself to spark a tingle of anticipation. They do not disappoint, charting the emotional contours of Buxtehude’s music with exquisite understanding and demonstrating their now familiar deep but lucid choral blend, out of which expertly executed solos emerge and return.’
2018
Pärt Magnificat. Nunc dimittis Schnittke Psalms of Repentance
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir / Kaspars Putniņš (BIS)
‘The Estonians have always rejoiced in a warm, rich sound and perfect blend, and guided by the utterly precise and dynamic Kaspars Putninš they give here a truly outstanding rendition that picks up every emotional and spiritual nuance with no sacrifice of technical perfection. Moments such as the blaze of major-key light in verse 4 or the pacing of the astounding climax at the end of verse 5, followed by the chromatic buzzing of the upper voices that opens verse 6, send shivers down one’s spine.’
2017
Mozart Mass in C minor, K427. Exsultate, jubilate, K165
Carolyn Sampson sop Olivia Vermeulen mez Makoto Sakurada ten Christian Immler bar Bach Collegium Japan / Masaaki Suzuki (BIS)
‘Period-instrument C minor Masses get better and better. The bar was set in the mid 1980s by Gardiner and Hogwood, then raised in the new millennium by the likes of McCreesh, Krivine and Langrée. This new recording from Japan, which joins Suzuki’s scholarly and startling Requiem, is fully worthy to join them.’
2016
Schoenberg Gurrelieder
Barbara Haveman sop Claudia Mahnke mez Brandon Jovanovich, Gerhard Siegel tens Thomas Bauer bar Johannes Martin Kränzle spkr Netherlands Female Youth Choir; Cologne Cathedral Choir, Male Voices and Vocal Ensemble; Chorus of the Bach-Verein, Cologne; Kartäuserkantorei, Cologne; Cologne Gürzenich Orchestra / Markus Stenz (Hyperion)
‘It shines a new light on this fascinating piece and has a fierce conviction and integrity all its own. I can’t imagine anyone interested in the work will want to be without it.’
2015
Elgar The Dream of Gerontius. Sea Pictures
Sarah Connolly mez Stuart Skelton ten David Soar bass BBC SO and Chorus / Sir Andrew Davis (Chandos)
‘A superbly paced and lovingly shaped Prelude immediately proclaims Sir Andrew Davis’s formidable credentials in this repertoire; indeed, his patient and scrupulously observant conception of the whole work evinces a selfless authority, wisdom and instinctive ebb and flow, and he certainly secures a splendidly disciplined and consistently fervent response from his massed BBC Symphony forces.’
2014
Mozart Requiem, K626 (including reconstruction of first performance, December 10, 1791). Misericordias Domini, K222
Joanne Lunn sop Rowan Hellier mez Thomas Hobbs ten Matthew Brook bass Dunedin Consort / John Butt (Linn)
‘The choir is of only 16 voices, from which the four soloists step out as required. Blend and tuning are of an accuracy all too rarely heard, even in this golden age of British choral singing.’
