What are you listening to?

[Jared]

Masses in abundance....do you have a guilty conscience which you are trying to expunge Jared LOL???

Seriously good music there in all honesty!

Fergus... I wish I had a deep and meaningful answer for you, but the sad reality is that I'm not able to provide it.

the disks above, along with most sacred choral music from the Baroque and Early Classical eras, just makes me very happy... no music ever gets any more joyous.... the age of rococo cherubs blowing trumpets!!

... as opposed to Renaissance polyphony, which at best, can make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck and send you into a deeper spiritual plane...

well, I'm in the need for joyous music at present!

[Jared]

beautiful stuff... almost makes you believe in a deity... ;-)

[Diapason]

Christmas Oratorio (Gardiner) getting a quick airing here this evening, although I won't have as much time as last night. I don't know this music at all (well, I know the chorales of course, but that doesn't count) and thus far I'm very impressed with recording, performance and most of all music. Gorgeous.

[Jared]

Christmas Oratorio (Gardiner) getting a quick airing here this evening, although I won't have as much time as last night. I don't know this music at all (well, I know the chorales of course, but that doesn't count) and thus far I'm very impressed with recording, performance and most of all music. Gorgeous.

I'm really pleased Simon... it's a truly wonderful box set; one which has had many listens over the past few years here... I'd still have to say that the Mass in B is my favourite overall...

[fergus]

Masses in abundance....do you have a guilty conscience which you are trying to expunge Jared LOL???

Seriously good music there in all honesty!

Fergus... I wish I had a deep and meaningful answer for you, but the sad reality is that I'm not able to provide it.

the disks above, along with most sacred choral music from the Baroque and Early Classical eras, just makes me very happy... no music ever gets any more joyous.... the age of rococo cherubs blowing trumpets!!

... as opposed to Renaissance polyphony, which at best, can make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck and send you into a deeper spiritual plane...

well, I'm in the need for joyous music at present!

That is a good enough answer indeed Jared; no other reason required other than listening to music to bring some joy. I recall when I first started posting all of my religious music many years ago I was suspected of being some kind of religious zealot....that is until people actually met me LOL!!! The plain truth was and still is that, like you, it makes me very happy to listen to it. Long may it continue for us.

[Diapason]

It's hard to be a non-religious fan of church music, especially when you're also a church musician!

[Jared]

It's hard to be a non-religious fan of church music, especially when you're also a church musician!

Simon... I'm not a believer, and I doubt I ever will be.

That said, I have always been drawn to the church, through it's history, its architecture, the devotional faith of it's believers and most of all it's music... I have always thought there is something magnificent about the joyous sound that a choir such as the Collegium Musicum 90 (for instance) is able to pour into something as heavenly as Hummel's Mass in D minor (for instance)... no other sound comes close for me.

I enjoy lieder & folk song, I'm certainly warming to opera but nothing comes close to the magnificent sound of a Mass or Requiem with a mixed choir and small orchestra... heavenly.

[fergus]

It's hard to be a non-religious fan of church music, especially when you're also a church musician!

Simon... I'm not a believer, and I doubt I ever will be.

That said, I have always been drawn to the church, through it's history, its architecture, the devotional faith of it's believers and most of all it's music... I have always thought there is something magnificent about the joyous sound that a choir such as the Collegium Musicum 90 (for instance) is able to pour into something as heavenly as Hummel's Mass in D minor (for instance)... no other sound comes close for me.

I enjoy lieder & folk song, I'm certainly warming to opera but nothing comes close to the magnificent sound of a Mass or Requiem with a mixed choir and small orchestra... heavenly.

I could not have said it better myself Jared; aptly sums up my feelings on the subject.

[Jared]

I'm finishing off tonight's listening with another run through of Vivaldi's lesser known Gloria, RV.588. This is from my new disk with George Guest, Choir of St John's Cambridge and the Wren Orchestra.

[fergus]

I have always preferred the Gloria RV588 to its better known sibling the RV589; despite the bombastic opening of the RV589 I have always felt the RV588 to be more gentle and to contain more beautiful music.