Judith Weir Choral Music

​Catalogue no: DCD 34095

Price: £13.00 (including postage and packaging)

In the first recording devoted entirely to Judith Weir’s choral music, the Choir of Gonville & Caius explores her evolving relationship with the medium, from her earliest liturgical commission to the most recent, premiered in 2009. Also included in this comprehensive collection are several secular pieces and her two organ works, which are now established classics of the repertoire. The athleticism, intensity, and clarity that are hallmarks of the choirs singing are ideally suited to Weirs strikingly original, approachable, and fascinating music.

1. Psalm 148
2. My guardian angel
3 - 5 Vertue
6. Ascending into heaven
7 - 9 little tree
10. Wild Mossy Mountains for organ
11. a blue true dream of sky 
12. Madrigal
13 - 14 Two Human Hymns
15. Illuminare Jerusalem
16. Drop down ye heavens from above
17. Love bade me welcome
18. Ettrick Banks for organ

"The freshness and precision of Weir’s writing is perfectly matched by the well tuned, clearly articulated singing of Geoffrey Webber’s Gonville & Caius Choir, one of Cambridge’s outstanding mixed college choirs." —  BBC Music Magazine – Choral & Song choice 

Reviews

A wide-ranging collection of vocal works that showcases Weir’s consistently inventive ear for text and texture. Her cummings Christmas garland little tree, for example, precisely captures the source’s whimsy and wonder, beguiling the ear with marimba accompaniment. Performances are predictably responsive and the excellent recording misses nothing.

Guy Weatherall, Classical Music

 

This welcome first recording devoted to Judith Weir’s choral music makes one wonder why the long delay. Spanning the quarter-century from 1983’s luminous, organ-accompanied Ascending into Heaven to the magisterial setting of Psalm 148, with its striking trombone commentary, this pristinely delivered compendium shows Weir to be an adroitly intelligent setter of text and acutely sensitive to the possibilities of the mixed voices of the Gonville & Caius choir. Two organ works, Wild Mossy Mountains and Ettrick Banks, provide pleasing punctuation.

Michael Quinn, Choir & Organ