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Advent Live, Vol. 2
Various composers

The Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge

Advent Live, Vol. 2

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212066126
Catnr: SIGCD 661
Release date: 04 December 2020
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Label
Signum Classics
UPC
0635212066126
Catalogue number
SIGCD 661
Release date
04 December 2020
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN

About the album

The sublime Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge return with the second voluume in their Advent series - celebrating the advent season from within the Christian tradition; a season celebrated since at least the sixth century.

This splendid live recording, from within the Chapel of St. John’s College itself, features Christmas favourites, including Britten’s Deo Gracias from A Ceremony of Carols as well as gorgeous performances of lesser known works by modern composers including Jonathan Dove, Arvo Pärt and Paul Manz.

Artist(s)

The Choir of St John's College Cambridge (vocals)

The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge is one of the finest collegiate choirs in the world, known and loved by millions from its broadcasts, concert tours and over 90 recordings. Founded in the 1670s, the Choir is known for its distinctive rich, warm sound, its expressive interpretations and its breadth of repertoire. Alongside these musical characteristics, the Choir is particularly proud of its happy, relaxed and mutually supportive atmosphere. The Choir is directed by Andrew Nethsingha following a long line of eminent Directors of Music, recently Dr George Guest, Dr Christopher Robinson and Dr David Hill. The Choir is made up of around 20 Choristers and Probationers from St John’s College School and 15 Choral Scholars who are members of...
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The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge is one of the finest collegiate choirs in the world, known and loved by millions from its broadcasts, concert tours and over 90 recordings. Founded in the 1670s, the Choir is known for its distinctive rich, warm sound, its expressive interpretations and its breadth of repertoire. Alongside these musical characteristics, the Choir is particularly proud of its happy, relaxed and mutually supportive atmosphere. The Choir is directed by Andrew Nethsingha following a long line of eminent Directors of Music, recently Dr George Guest, Dr Christopher Robinson and Dr David Hill.
The Choir is made up of around 20 Choristers and Probationers from St John’s College School and 15 Choral Scholars who are members of St John’s College, its primary purpose being to enhance the liturgy and worship at daily services in the College Chapel. The Choir has a diverse repertoire spanning over 500 years of music. It is also renowned for championing contemporary music by commissioning new works, including compositions by Joanna Ward, Nico Muhly, James Burton and the College’s Composer in Residence Michael Finnissy. The Choir regularly sings Bach Cantatas liturgically with St John’s Sinfonia, its period instrument ensemble.
The Choir brings the ‘St John’s Sound’ to listeners around the world through its weekly webcasts (available at sjcchoir. co. uk).
In addition to regular radio broadcasts in this country and abroad, the Choir usually makes two CD recordings each year. In May 2016 the College launched its new ‘St John’s Cambridge’ recording label on which the Choir has released the BBC Music Magazine Award winning recording of Jonathan Harvey’s music: DEO; Christmas with St John’s; KYRIE (works by Poulenc, Kodály and Janáček); and Mass in G Minor (works by Vaughan Williams).
The Choir also maintains a busy schedule of concerts and tours internationally twice a year. It also performs regularly in the UK, with venues including Symphony Hall, Birmingham and Royal Festival Hall, London.

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Andrew Nethsingha (conductor)

Performing as a conductor and organist in North America, South Africa, Far East, and throughout Europe, Andrew Nethsingha has been Director of Music at St John’s College, Cambridge since 2007. His innovations at St John’s have included weekly webcasts and a termly Bach cantata series.  His recordings for Chandos have been well reviewed. Andrew Nethsingha received his early musical training as a chorister at Exeter Cathedral, where his father was organist for over a quarter of a century. He later studied at the Royal College of Music, where he won seven prizes, and at St John’s College, Cambridge. He held Organ Scholarships under Christopher Robinson, at St George’s Windsor, and George Guest, at St John’s, before becoming Assistant Organist at Wells...
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Performing as a conductor and organist in North America, South Africa, Far East, and throughout Europe, Andrew Nethsingha has been Director of Music at St John’s College, Cambridge since 2007. His innovations at St John’s have included weekly webcasts and a termly Bach cantata series. His recordings for Chandos have been well reviewed.

Andrew Nethsingha received his early musical training as a chorister at Exeter Cathedral, where his father was organist for over a quarter of a century. He later studied at the Royal College of Music, where he won seven prizes, and at St John’s College, Cambridge. He held Organ Scholarships under Christopher Robinson, at St George’s Windsor, and George Guest, at St John’s, before becoming Assistant Organist at Wells Cathedral. He was subsequently Director of Music at Truro and Gloucester Cathedrals. Other recent positions have included Artistic Director of the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival and Musical Director of the Gloucester Choral Society.

He has served as President of the Cathedral Organists’ Association. He has worked with some of the UK’s leading orchestras. Andrew’s concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra have included many of the major choral works: Mahler’s 8th Symphony, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Britten War Requiem, Brahms Requiem, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius and The Kingdom, Walton Belshazzar’s Feast, Poulenc Gloria and Duruflé Requiem. He has also worked with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the London Mozart Players, Britten Sinfonia, the Aarhus Symfoniorkester and the BBC Concert Orchestra. Recent conducting engagements have included the BBC Proms, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Tokyo Suntory Hall. He regularly runs choral courses in various countries, including France and the U.S.A.


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Composer(s)

Arvo Pärt

Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia, and was raised by his mother and stepfather in Rakvere in northern Estonia. He began to experiment with the top and bottom notes as the family's piano's middle register was damaged. His first serious study came in 1954 at the Tallinn Music Middle School, but less than a year later he temporarily abandoned it to fulfill military service, playing oboe and percussion in the army band. While at the Tallinn Conservatory, he studied composition withHeino Eller. As a student, he produced music for film and the stage. During the 1950s, he also completed his first vocal composition, the cantata Meie aed ('Our Garden') for children's choir and orchestra. He graduated in 1963. From 1957 to 1967, he worked as a sound producer for Estonian...
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Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia, and was raised by his mother and stepfather in Rakvere in northern Estonia. He began to experiment with the top and bottom notes as the family's piano's middle register was damaged. His first serious study came in 1954 at the Tallinn Music Middle School, but less than a year later he temporarily abandoned it to fulfill military service, playing oboe and percussion in the army band. While at the Tallinn Conservatory, he studied composition withHeino Eller. As a student, he produced music for film and the stage. During the 1950s, he also completed his first vocal composition, the cantata Meie aed ('Our Garden') for children's choir and orchestra. He graduated in 1963. From 1957 to 1967, he worked as a sound producer for Estonian radio.
Although criticized by Tikhon Khrennikov in 1962, for employing serialism in Nekrolog (1960), which exhibited his "susceptibility to foreign influences", nine months later he won First Prize in a competition of 1,200 works, awarded by the all-Union Society of Composers, indicating the inability of the Soviet regime to agree consistently on what was permissible. In the 1970s, Pärt studied medieval and Renaissance music instead of focusing on his own composition. About this same time, he converted from Lutheranism to the Russian Orthodox faith.
In 1980, after a prolonged struggle with Soviet officials, he was allowed to emigrate with his wife and their two sons. He lived first in Vienna, where he took Austriancitizenship and then relocated to Berlin, Germany, in 1981. He returned to Estonia around the turn of the 21st century and now lives alternately in Berlin and Tallinn. He speaks fluent German and has German citizenship as a result of living in Germany since 1981.

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Hugo Wolf

Together with Gustav Mahler, Hugo Wolf can be considered as one of the greatest composers of Late Romantic lieder. Both of them followed the tradition of Schubert and Schumann, but intensified the gerne with Wagner's techniques of text declamation and harmonic development. What makes Wolf's song cycles special, is the fact that often they are devoted to a single poet, like in his Mörike-Lieder (1889), Eichendorff-Lieder (1889) en Goethe-Lieder (1890). For each cycle, he spent a considerable time studying the text to create the best matching music. His accomodation of musical structure, harmonic subteties and pianistic texture are all inseperable from the lyrics. Partly due to his psychological sophistication his songs can be heard as miniature operas. Even though he did start writing...
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Together with Gustav Mahler, Hugo Wolf can be considered as one of the greatest composers of Late Romantic lieder. Both of them followed the tradition of Schubert and Schumann, but intensified the gerne with Wagner's techniques of text declamation and harmonic development. What makes Wolf's song cycles special, is the fact that often they are devoted to a single poet, like in his Mörike-Lieder (1889), Eichendorff-Lieder (1889) en Goethe-Lieder (1890). For each cycle, he spent a considerable time studying the text to create the best matching music. His accomodation of musical structure, harmonic subteties and pianistic texture are all inseperable from the lyrics. Partly due to his psychological sophistication his songs can be heard as miniature operas.
Even though he did start writing on several full-fledged operas, it never became a true succes. Only his opera Der Corregidor (1896) was completed. Things went downhill from there. In 1897, Wolf had a nervous breakdown as a consequence of a syphilis infection he had since his teens. After a failed suicide attempt, he was admitted to a clinic in Vienna. The somber Michelangelo-Lieder (1898) would become his last completed composition. Wolf died in 1903, three weeks before his 43st birthday.


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Herbert Howells

Herbert Howells studied at the Royal College of Music, London, with Stanford and Wood and taught there himself from 1920 until 1979. He succeeded Holst at the St. Paul’s Girls School and had a professorship at the London University. His music is clearly in the British diatonic tradition, with connections towards Elgar, Walton and Vaughan Williams. Amongst his early works are two piano concertos and chamber music, but his oeuvre mainly consists of choral works, including 15 anthems, a concert requiem (Hymnus paradisi from 1938, first performed in 1950), masses, motets, and several songs. Deeply rooted in the English choral tradition, Howells’ work demonstrates great, precious craftsmanship and a modest, very eloquent personality. (Source:Musicalifeiten.nl)
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Herbert Howells studied at the Royal College of Music, London, with Stanford and Wood and taught there himself from 1920 until 1979. He succeeded Holst at the St. Paul’s Girls School and had a professorship at the London University. His music is clearly in the British diatonic tradition, with connections towards Elgar, Walton and Vaughan Williams.
Amongst his early works are two piano concertos and chamber music, but his oeuvre mainly consists of choral works, including 15 anthems, a concert requiem (Hymnus paradisi from 1938, first performed in 1950), masses, motets, and several songs. Deeply rooted in the English choral tradition, Howells’ work demonstrates great, precious craftsmanship and a modest, very eloquent personality.
(Source:Musicalifeiten.nl)
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Press

Play album Play album
01.
I Am The day
06:35
(Jonathan Dove) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, James Anderson-Besant, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
02.
B?g?roditsye Dyevo
01:17
(Arvo Pärt) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Glen Dempsey, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
03.
A Spotless Rose
03:30
(Herbert Howells) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Glen Dempsey, Simon Grant, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
04.
A Prayer to St John the Baptist
04:08
(Cecilia McDowall) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, James Anderson-Besant, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
05.
Vox clara ecce intonat
04:53
(Gabriel Jackson) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Glen Dempsey, Ignacio Mañá Mesas, Hugh Cutting, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
06.
The Last and Greatest Herald
05:49
(John McCabe) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, James Anderson-Besant, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
07.
O Wisdom
00:52
(Traditional) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, James Anderson-Besant, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
08.
O Adonai
00:56
(Traditional) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Timothy Ravalde, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
09.
A Tender Shoot
02:01
(Otto Goldschmidt) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Matthew Gibson, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
10.
Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
01:23
(Hugo Distler) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Matthew Gibson, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
11.
Out of Your sleep
02:49
(Anthony Milner) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, James Anderson-Besant, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
12.
Introduction – Hark, the Glad Sound
05:28
(Judith Bingham) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, James Anderson-Besant, Ignacio Mañá Mesas, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
13.
There is No Rose
01:52
(Elizabeth Maconchy) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Glen Dempsey, Louis Watkins, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
14.
O Root of Jesse
00:51
(Traditional) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Louis Watkins, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
15.
O Key of David
00:57
(Traditional) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Louis Watkins, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
16.
Ach so laß von mir dich finden
03:22
(Georg Philipp Telemann) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Glen Dempsey, Jakob Lindberg, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
17.
E’en so, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come
02:48
(Paul Manz) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Glen Dempsey, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
18.
The Linden Tree Carol
01:53
(Traditional) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Glen Dempsey, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
19.
A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28: X. Deo gracias
01:14
(Traditional) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Anne Denholm, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
20.
Einklang
01:59
(Hugo Wolf) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, Glen Dempsey, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
21.
Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending
05:09
(Traditional) The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, James Anderson-Besant
22.
Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 661
03:11
James Anderson-Besant
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