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LISTENING ROOM LISTENING ROOM Click the camera icon while searching in your Spotify mobile app and scan the code below to listen to selections from these albums. Click the camera icon while searching in your Spotify mobile app and scan the code below to listen to selections from these albums. AVAILABLE NOW FOR PURCHASE OR STREAMING AVAILABLE NOW FOR PURCHASE OR STREAMING AVAILABLE NOW FOR PURCHASE OR STREAMING AVAILABLE NOW FOR PURCHASE OR STREAMING AVAILABLE NOW FOR PURCHASE OR STREAMING LISTEN ON LISTEN ON LISTEN ON Navona Records, Ravello Records, Big Round Records, and Ansonica Records are imprints of PARMA Recordings. www.parmarecordings.com Navona Records, Ravello Records, Big Round Records, and Ansonica Records are imprints of PARMA Recordings. www.parmarecordings.com
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SOUNDS OF AMERICA One of the inest ensembles of their kind: the Jitro Czech Girls Choir bring joy to the music of Petr Eben period ensembles, the Ottawa Bach Choir, conducted by founding director Lisette Canton, have combined with Matthias Maute’s Ensemble Caprice from Montreal in eloquent, persuasive performances of Handel, Schütz and Bach. The two have teamed up before, most notably in 2016, when they played in Beijing and Shanghai, and this is reflected in how easily they move to the heart of the music’s spiritual message, and how organically they integrate their HIP knowledge in order to communicate that message. Their performance of Handel’s Dixit Dominus also gets the young composer’s precocious power and the passion of his utterances. From the exuberant, rigorous physicality of the opening chorus and the clear enunciation of the singing, the choir sing as if the words were actually being listened to and reflected upon by an engaged congregation. The Canadian countertenor Daniel Taylor’s sweet-toned singing of ‘Virgam virtutis tuae’ is one of a number of lovely vocal contributions, another being sopranos Kayla Ruiz and Kathleen Radka’s exquisite ‘De torrente in via bibet’. There is splendid instrumental work throughout, including Jean-Christophe Lisette’s cello solo in the ‘Virgam’. And the choir show their virtuosity and staying power in the fugue that concludes the ‘Gloria Patri, et Filio’. The Schütz songs are similarly vivid and engaged, but even so the grandeur of Bach’s motet is staggering and movingly performed. The sound is captured splendidly by Montreal’s own ATMA Classique label in the audiophile space of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Church in Ottawa. Laurence Vittes Eben ‘In Heaven’ Liturgical Chants. Choruses on Latin Texts. Catonis moralia. Ten Poetic Duets. About Swallows and Girls Jitro Czech Girls Choir / Jiří Skopal Navona F NV6228 (56’ • DDD) Recorded 1995 2007 An entire disc running close to an hour devoted to pieces for girls’ chorus, either a cappella or accompanied by piano or organ, might seem like too much of a good thing. When the pieces are by Petr Eben (1929-2007), however, this is resoundingly not the case. The five rather appealing sets of choral songs gathered on this nicely produced disc are diverse in character, mixing the sacred and the secular, setting either Latin (Catonis moralia, Choruses on Latin Texts, Liturgical Chants) or Czech (About Swallows and Girls, Poetic Duets). Eben would have celebrated his 90th birthday this year and is still best remembered as a formidable organist and composer for his instrument, yet his output of vocal and choral music is extensive and impressive. The Liturgical Chants (1960) are part of a sequence of sacred works published in several volumes from 1955, the present set comprising an Introitus, Graduale, Evangelium, Offertorium and Communio built around Psalm 29. The music, as in all these pieces, is stylish without seeming so, the brightness of the girls’ voices at odds with the gravity of the texts, yet it all works very nicely. The same is true of the Choruses on Latin Texts (1973; it is not explained why only the first three are given here) and Catonis moralia (1974-75), the latter setting third-century texts based on Cato, the five movements structured like a Baroque suite. The Jitro Girls Choir are one of the finest ensembles of the kind and their performances are delightful throughout, a testament to Ji∑í Skopal’s firm direction. The two early-ish Czech-language cycles, the Ten Poetic Duets (1965, with piano accompaniment) and About Swallows and Girls (1959-60) bring out their most joyful singing, caught in bright if unspectacular sound. Guy Rickards gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2019 III

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SOUNDS OF AMERICA

One of the inest ensembles of their kind: the Jitro Czech Girls Choir bring joy to the music of Petr Eben period ensembles, the Ottawa Bach Choir, conducted by founding director Lisette Canton, have combined with Matthias Maute’s Ensemble Caprice from Montreal in eloquent, persuasive performances of Handel, Schütz and Bach. The two have teamed up before, most notably in 2016, when they played in Beijing and Shanghai, and this is reflected in how easily they move to the heart of the music’s spiritual message, and how organically they integrate their HIP knowledge in order to communicate that message.

Their performance of Handel’s Dixit Dominus also gets the young composer’s precocious power and the passion of his utterances. From the exuberant, rigorous physicality of the opening chorus and the clear enunciation of the singing, the choir sing as if the words were actually being listened to and reflected upon by an engaged congregation.

The Canadian countertenor Daniel Taylor’s sweet-toned singing of ‘Virgam virtutis tuae’ is one of a number of lovely vocal contributions, another being sopranos Kayla Ruiz and Kathleen Radka’s exquisite ‘De torrente in via bibet’. There is splendid instrumental work throughout, including Jean-Christophe Lisette’s cello solo in the ‘Virgam’. And the choir show their virtuosity and staying power in the fugue that concludes the ‘Gloria Patri, et Filio’.

The Schütz songs are similarly vivid and engaged, but even so the grandeur of Bach’s motet is staggering and movingly performed. The sound is captured splendidly by Montreal’s own ATMA Classique label in the audiophile space of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Church in Ottawa. Laurence Vittes

Eben ‘In Heaven’ Liturgical Chants. Choruses on Latin Texts. Catonis moralia. Ten Poetic Duets. About Swallows and Girls Jitro Czech Girls Choir / Jiří Skopal Navona F NV6228 (56’ • DDD) Recorded 1995 2007

An entire disc running close to an hour devoted to pieces for girls’ chorus, either a cappella or accompanied by piano or organ, might seem like too much of a good thing. When the pieces are by Petr Eben (1929-2007), however, this is resoundingly not the case. The five rather appealing sets of choral songs gathered on this nicely produced disc are diverse in character, mixing the sacred and the secular, setting either Latin (Catonis moralia, Choruses on

Latin Texts, Liturgical Chants) or Czech (About Swallows and Girls, Poetic Duets).

Eben would have celebrated his 90th birthday this year and is still best remembered as a formidable organist and composer for his instrument, yet his output of vocal and choral music is extensive and impressive. The Liturgical Chants (1960) are part of a sequence of sacred works published in several volumes from 1955, the present set comprising an Introitus, Graduale, Evangelium, Offertorium and Communio built around Psalm 29. The music, as in all these pieces, is stylish without seeming so, the brightness of the girls’ voices at odds with the gravity of the texts, yet it all works very nicely. The same is true of the Choruses on Latin Texts (1973; it is not explained why only the first three are given here) and Catonis moralia (1974-75), the latter setting third-century texts based on Cato, the five movements structured like a Baroque suite.

The Jitro Girls Choir are one of the finest ensembles of the kind and their performances are delightful throughout, a testament to Ji∑í Skopal’s firm direction. The two early-ish Czech-language cycles, the Ten Poetic Duets (1965, with piano accompaniment) and About Swallows and Girls (1959-60) bring out their most joyful singing, caught in bright if unspectacular sound. Guy Rickards gramophone.co.uk

GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2019 III

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