Choral Music Suggestions

My favorite scaled down version of the Durufle Requiem (probably because I know some of the singers and have heard them perform in concert and at a few funerals) is the Voices of Ascension recording on Delos, surprisingly called The Durufle Album. If you can find it (long since out of print, as Delos sadly is no more, I believe), one of the things I like about it is that the women in the choir pretty much sing straight tone (little or no vibrato), which fits the piece beautifully, since it is based on plainsong chants.

The Herwigge discs mentioned by Newbee are excellent versions of the Faure.

Just in time ...

Arkiv Music is having a sale on Choral Music this week.

Rich

Britten's Ceremony of Carols on Argo Lp is a wonderful piece and some of the solo work (with harp) is incredibly immediate, almost ghostly-real. Good, sometimes haunting tunes, too. Must have a really good tracking cart/arm for some of the high, forte passages towards the end!

I second Durufle's Requiem, probably Hyperion's Best/Corydon on CD....

Try the music of Hildegard Von Bingen: 11,000 Virgins by the Anonymous 4 (females) on Harmonia Mundi. She was a 12th Century abbess who was a poet and composer. The music is chants about the legend of St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins. The singing is ethereal with a crystalline clarity.

For something really different try the Kodaly Girls Choir of Budapest recordings. A favorite is "Hungarian Songs" on Angel Records, the music of Zoltan Kodaly and Bela Bartok. Unusual music that is beautiful and at times very haunting.