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Harrison/Edwards/Body/Sola/Crossley-Holand/Boyd-A Bridge Of Dreams

A Bridge Of Dreams [SACD]
~ Harrison/Edwards/Body/Sola/Crossley-Holand/Boyd

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Product Reviews

The subtitle of "A Bridge of Dreams," a 2011 album with Ars Nova Copenhagen and Paul Hillier, is "a cappella Music from the Pacific Rim," and it includes the works of composers from Australia, New Zealand, California, and China, all of which draws in part, if not entirely, on non-Western musical traditions. Lou Harrison left the accompaniment for his Mass for Saint Cecilia's Day open-ended and here Andrew Lawrence-King provides a discreet undergirding using medieval harp, psaltery, and hurdy-gurdy. It bears a strong resemblance to Medieval plainchant mass in its predominantly monophonic, melismatic writing, and its modal character. The modes, though, are Harrison's own, based on traditional Indonesian and Chinese scales. The mass is a beautifully expressive, immediately engaging piece that reveals a fresh facet of the composer's brilliantly expansive imagination. In The Seafarer, Lawrence-King plays psaltery and harp in his arrangement of music from Chinese composer Liu Sola's 2009 chamber opera, The Afterlife of Li Jiantong, over which Paul Hillier provides a magisterial narration of Kevin Crossley-Holland's translation of an Anglo-Saxon ballad. Australian composer Anne Boyd's As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams is an immensely impressive work for wordless chorus. Boyd creates a mesmerizing dreamscape that's essentially static harmonically but that's continually shifting densities and textures and is never less than sonically gorgeous. Ars Nova Copenhagen sings with chaste but warm tone, smooth blend, tonal precision, and alert musicality under the leadership of Paul Hillier. The sound of Da Capo's hybrid SACD is spacious and warmly ambient. This is an album that should be of strong interest to fans of new choral music from off the beaten path. ~ Stephen Eddins, Rovi

Classical Data

67:38
Choral
Contemporary
Paul Hillier
England
English baritone Paul Hillier is one of the leading figures, both as a singer and conductor, in the early music movement and now makes his home in the United States, where he has shown increasing interest in new music. As a boy he was a chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. This position carries with it an opportunity to learn a wide expanse of choral repertoire, to receive a thorough musical and general education at the St. Paul's Cathedral School, and to make important lifelong contacts. After graduating from school he studied music at London's Guildhall. He returned to St. Paul's Cathedral in 1973 as its vicar-choral for one season. He was also a member of the Queen's Chapel Royal at Windsor Castle. In 1974 he made his solo recital debut at the Purcell Room in London. In the same year he co-founded the Hilliard Ensemble, becoming its music director. The ensemble soon became one of the world's best known early music vocal groups, and was much in demand for performances worldwide, making a number of bestselling and award-winning recordings. The all-male quartet specialized in Renaissance music. In 1980-81 he taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. After that he began to spend an increasing amount of time in America. He was the Copland Colloquium Fellow at Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1984. He became more interested in New Music and tried to get the Hilliard Ensemble to branch out in that direction. That, and a wish to add female voices and engage in the more theatrical style of performance presentation, led to his leaving the Ensemble. In 1990 he moved to the United States to become a professor of music at the University of California, Davis. He founded Theatre of Voices, an ensemble of male and female singers, specializing both in early and recent music, and performing in dynamic, theatrical stage presentations. Unlike the Hilliard Ensemble, it was planned to include a varying number of singers, depending on the demands of the performances. Theatre of Voices records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi USA, on which it has released a repertoire ranging from twelfth century chant to music of Arvo P rt, including Litany of the Whale by John Cage, and the selection of early American religious music, including hymns sung in the "shaped note" tradition. In 1996 Hillier left California to join the faculty of Indiana University, Bloomington, as director of its Early Music Institute. This is an interdisciplinary study program offering undergraduate and graduate degrees involving not just the study of ancient performance practice and musicology, but also courses in literature, fine arts, and medieval studies in other departments and schools of the university. Hillier was also conductor of Indiana University's Pro Arte Singers, its early music choir. In 2003 he became chief conductor of Ars Nova Copenhagen, and chief conductor and artistic director of the National Chamber Choir of Ireland. Hillier has maintained his active career as a singer and conductor, appearing frequently in North America, Europe, and Japan, though he has relaxed this pace sufficiently to carry out his teaching and administrative responsibilities and also to research and write. His books include 300 Years of English Partsongs, Romantic English Partsongs, The Catch Book, and one on Estonian composer Arvo P rt, and he has edited of a book of collected writings of composer Steve Reich. Hillier has won many prizes for recordings. He performs on the Harmonia Mundi, ECM, EMI, Finlandia, and Hyperion labels. ~ Joseph Stevenson, Rovi
The subtitle of "A Bridge of Dreams," a 2011 album with Ars Nova Copenhagen and Paul Hillier, is "a cappella Music from the Pacific Rim," and it includes the works of composers from Australia, New Zealand, California, and China, all of which draws in part, if not entirely, on non-Western musical traditions. Lou Harrison left the accompaniment for his Mass for Saint Cecilia's Day open-ended and here Andrew Lawrence-King provides a discreet undergirding using medieval harp, psaltery, and hurdy-gurdy. It bears a strong resemblance to Medieval plainchant mass in its predominantly monophonic, melismatic writing, and its modal character. The modes, though, are Harrison's own, based on traditional Indonesian and Chinese scales. The mass is a beautifully expressive, immediately engaging piece that reveals a fresh facet of the composer's brilliantly expansive imagination. In The Seafarer, Lawrence-King plays psaltery and harp in his arrangement of music from Chinese composer Liu Sola's 2009 chamber opera, The Afterlife of Li Jiantong, over which Paul Hillier provides a magisterial narration of Kevin Crossley-Holland's translation of an Anglo-Saxon ballad. Australian composer Anne Boyd's As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams is an immensely impressive work for wordless chorus. Boyd creates a mesmerizing dreamscape that's essentially static harmonically but that's continually shifting densities and textures and is never less than sonically gorgeous. Ars Nova Copenhagen sings with chaste but warm tone, smooth blend, tonal precision, and alert musicality under the leadership of Paul Hillier. The sound of Da Capo's hybrid SACD is spacious and warmly ambient. This is an album that should be of strong interest to fans of new choral music from off the beaten path. ~ Stephen Eddins, Rovi

Details

Harrison/Edwards/Body/Sola/Crossley-Holand/Boyd
A Bridge Of Dreams
Classical & Opera
Classical Composers
15 November 2011
Sacd Ars Nova Copenhagen/Lawrence-K Sacd ~ Discs:1
Dacapo Classica ( DCAP )
SACD
6220597
747313159765

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