(Postal strikes and other delays have resulted in very few CDs being received this month and a late posting)

NO CHOICE BUT LOVE: SONGS OF THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY
ERIC FERRING, tenor
MADELINE SLETTEDAHL, piano
LEXICON LC2206 (2CDs)

This is a beautiful production – fine performances of a wide range of settings of diverse texts linked by LGBTQ+ themes and associations. There are songs by Poulenc, Britten, de Falla and Smyth as well as many more contemporary works setting extracts from speeches and letters as well as more traditional lyrics. Jennifer sets Walt Whitman in Lilacs. James Agee’s Sure on this shining night receives a fresh treatment from Willie Lee Alexander III. Jake Heggie’s Friendly Persuasions draws on four close friendships of Poulenc. The CD opens with a very moving song cycle by Ben Moore, Love remained. This references three American figures who have helped to highlight issues faced by the community. A very welcome release.

ULO KRIGUL – LIQUID TURNS
ESTONIAN PHILHARMONIC CHAMBER CHOIR
TALLINN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
KASPARS PUTNINS, conductor
BIS -2590 65’49

I haven’t come across this composer before. Born in Estonia in 1978, his work is deeply spiritual, connecting traditional religious concepts such as the relationship between the breath/wind/Spirit/God. The music is spacious, combining the disciplined vocal forces with strings and electronics or just standing alone. Transcendent.

GITY RAZAZ – THE STRANGE HIGHWAY
VARIOUS ARTISTS
BIS2634 54’54

Iranian born Gity Razaz moved to the US at an early age and considers her immigrant status as an integral part of her composer’s voice. She talks of the process of ‘uprooting and rebuilding’. Although there is more diversity of forces on this CD there are many similarities in the affect of the music to the previous one by Krigul. This is deeply spiritual music, speaking of human experience of fear, hope and longing found through that process. Solo string instruments alone or with piano or electronics feature heavily. The CD closes with Metamorphosis of Narcissus for chamber orchestra and begins with cello octet, The Strange Highway. There is much to explore and enjoy here.

LUX AETERNA
THE GESUALDO SIX
OWAIN PARK, director
HYPERION CDA68388 67’36

The Gesualdo Six have rapidly developed a reputation for beautifully crafted programmes and performances and here we have another based around the theme of grief. It aims to present the range of emotions and themes contained within including the more positive and hopeful. Much of the vocal music in the sequence is contemporary including Howard Skempton’s And there was war in heaven and the conductor’s own Sequence: In parenthesis. John Tavener’s well-established Funeral Ikos is also here together with earlier works from Morales, Byrd and Purcell. An engaging and unusually themed production.

CARL LOEWE – SYMPHONIES 1 & 2
JENAER PHILHARMONIE
SIMON GAUDENZ, conductor
CPO 555 319-2 58’51

Not a contemporary composer but now relatively unknown, Carl Loewe was born at the very end of the 18th century in a town now in Poland. He was a hard-working and well known musician, promoter and composer. Much of his music no longer exists but here we have two Symphonies, joined with the short overture: Themista. An interesting release giving an insight into into this man’s music.

SP