CD-Charts Position 1

Purcell: Ayres for the Theatre

from: Hyperion UK

Release Date July 13, 1999

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Christmas Mass in Rome

from: Polygram Records

Release Date November 09, 1993
This is one the very best Gabrieli consort discs and almost impossible to get hold of. If you get an opportunity grab it and make a back up. The Palestrina on the disc is mind-blowing. A totally McCreeshian take on a usually serenely, gently sung composer. The performance is polar opposite to for example, the sublime Pro Cantione Antiqua discs. In particular the Kyrie, Gloria and Credo are breathtaking, the rest of the mass, still brilliant is less impressive. McCreesh succeeds in making Palestrina not just beautiful, but exciting. The plainchant on the disc is of the very best sort that McCreesh can produce, with perfect acoustics. The Victoria motets are truly magnificent and compete with Palestrina's mass. The canzone are not particularly ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Venetian Vespers (Monteverdi * Rigatti * Grandi * Cavalli) /Gabrieli Consort & Players * McCreesh

by: Research Composer, Giovanni Antonio Rigatti, Alessandro Grandi, Claudio Monteverdi, Adriano Banchieri, Giacomo Finetti, Pietro Francesco Cavalli, Anonymous, Gregorian Chant, Biagio Marini, Gabrieli Consort, Charles Daniels, Paul McCreesh, Alison Wray, Jonathan Best, Tessa Bonner, Angus Smith, Peter Harvey, Robert Horn, Paula Chateauneuf, Timothy Roberts, Susan Hemington Jones, Fred Jacobs, Celia Harper, Charles Pott, Florian Deuter, Gabrieli Players

Release Date May 11, 1993
This really a fine recording. I bought my copy one sunny Saturday morning in Melbourne in around 1993. I saw it on the shelf and I got my wallet out. I was completely blown away by the music on this disc. Rigatti was a real discovery for me.

The use of high falsettists in the chorus and solos is particularly effective and gives us a real insight into the sounds of music in Venice in the early 17th century.

I cannot recommend this marvellous recording too highly, it is clearly one of the best made by the Gabrieli Consort, Choir & Players.

Great playing from the strings, cornetti and tromboni.

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

Biber: The Rosary Sonatas

from: Avie

Release Date July 20, 2004
I am very pleased with this offering. The recording and performances are superb and the meditations preceding the sonatas add a great depth of understanding as they are typical of the period in which the sonatas were composed. My only criticism of the album is that the narrator of the meditations is hard to hear owing to the accoustics under which the meditations were recorded.

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Music For Queen Mary-A Celebration Of The Life And Death Of Queen Mary

from: Sony

Release Date April 04, 1995
'NOW DOES THE GLORIOUS DAY APPEAR' ON THIS DISC WITH GLORIOUS SINGING!


Purcell compositions for Queen Mary span the whole of her brief reign. He provided music for her coronation, on April 11,1689; for the formal celebraton of her birthday on April 30 each year; and for her funeral, on March 5, 1695. At the coronation of William and Mary his 'I was glad' was one of 9 anthems performed during this ceremony.

Purcell, in his position as Abbey Organists has tailored the music with precision. The opening passage is in stately block chords-straightforward for the choir to co-ordinate while proceeding along the nave, and arriving in their places just in time to watch the conductor for the closing bars. Later in the service ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Gabriel's Greeting: Medieval English Christmas Music - Sinfonye

by: Stevie Wishart, Philippe LeChancelier, Vivian Ellis, Jocelyn West, Jim Denley, Paula Chateauneuf

Release Date November 30, 1993
'NOW DOES THE GLORIOUS DAY APPEAR' ON THIS DISC WITH GLORIOUS SINGING!


Purcell compositions for Queen Mary span the whole of her brief reign. He provided music for her coronation, on April 11,1689; for the formal celebraton of her birthday on April 30 each year; and for her funeral, on March 5, 1695. At the coronation of William and Mary his 'I was glad' was one of 9 anthems performed during this ceremony.

Purcell, in his position as Abbey Organists has tailored the music with precision. The opening passage is in stately block chords-straightforward for the choir to co-ordinate while proceeding along the nave, and arriving in their places just in time to watch the conductor for the closing bars. Later in the service ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

John Blow Anthems

from: Hyperion UK

Release Date June 13, 2006
'NOW DOES THE GLORIOUS DAY APPEAR' ON THIS DISC WITH GLORIOUS SINGING!


Purcell compositions for Queen Mary span the whole of her brief reign. He provided music for her coronation, on April 11,1689; for the formal celebraton of her birthday on April 30 each year; and for her funeral, on March 5, 1695. At the coronation of William and Mary his 'I was glad' was one of 9 anthems performed during this ceremony.

Purcell, in his position as Abbey Organists has tailored the music with precision. The opening passage is in stately block chords-straightforward for the choir to co-ordinate while proceeding along the nave, and arriving in their places just in time to watch the conductor for the closing bars. Later in the service ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

Gabrieli: Music for San Rocco [M-ch/Stereo SACD]

from: Archiv Produktion

Release Date November 09, 2004
This fabulous disc presents most of Gabrieli's celebrated antiphonal works recorded in a scuola (San Rocco, Venice) that McCreesh conjectures they were written for (instead of St Mark's). This is music that simply has to be heard in cori spezzati for all the effects to be adequately realised and to make sufficient sense of the alternating "choirs"; fortunately it was recorded in spectacular MCH sound with each "choir" being readily identifiable and clarifying the (sometimes dense) textures. The recording lends a nice warmth to what, to some ears, might be consider rather astringent sounding violins but on occasions sounds a little closely-miked and a bit harsh. The sound and, more importantly, the music is consequently not as impressive in stereo as in MCH.
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CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

Marais: Viol Music for the Sun King

from: Naxos

Release Date January 23, 1996
This cd is generally very very nice. I think this is only my 2nd cd with Marais music on it so I was interested to see if it was as good as the Marais stuff on Jordi Savall's Tous les Matins du Monde. I would say that I liked it about as much as that cd, except for the Couplets de Folies. On that track I thought the viol was too low in the mix. It wasn't "front and centre" like it is in Savall's version. Of the rest of the pieces on the disc the D major suite (tracks 5-10) is definitely my favourite; it's mostly slow & simltaneously happy & sad somehow. I think the other two suites are almost as good.

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

Monteverdi - L'Orfeo / Ainsley · Bott · A. King · Bonner · Gooding · Robson · Evans · George · Grant · New London Consort · Pickett

by: Claudio Monteverdi, Philip Pickett, John Mark Ainsley, Catherine Bott, Tessa Bonner, Julia Gooding, Christopher Robson, Robert Evans, New London Consort, Simon Grant, Deborah York, Carol Hall, Catherine King, Charles Brett, Robert Jones, Paul Agnew, Alan Ewing, Michael George, Andrew King, Lucy Russell, Mark Levy Pavlo Beznosiuk, Paula Chateauneuf, John Toll, Richard Egarr Tom Finucane

Release Date January 19, 1993
This cd is generally very very nice. I think this is only my 2nd cd with Marais music on it so I was interested to see if it was as good as the Marais stuff on Jordi Savall's Tous les Matins du Monde. I would say that I liked it about as much as that cd, except for the Couplets de Folies. On that track I thought the viol was too low in the mix. It wasn't "front and centre" like it is in Savall's version. Of the rest of the pieces on the disc the D major suite (tracks 5-10) is definitely my favourite; it's mostly slow & simltaneously happy & sad somehow. I think the other two suites are almost as good.