BBC Singers on NMC: eight essential recordings

15th March 2023

Features NMC Recordings

The BBC Singers play a vital role in the contemporary music ecosystem of the UK, regularly commissioning, performing, recording, and advocating for new choral music. The group's contribution to new music over their nearly century-long history has been immeasurable, and has left its mark on the NMC catalogue accordingly. At this time of great uncertainty for the Singers we wanted to highlight some of the brilliant recordings of the group that have been released by NMC over the years. You can find a link to support the Singers at the end of this article.

Mask of Orpheus artwork

Harrison Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus

BBC Singers | BBC Symphony Orchestra | Andrew Davis | Martyn Brabbins released 1997

Harrison Birtwistle's awe-inspiring masterpiece The Mask of Orpheus is a key work in the development of post-war opera, groundbreaking in its fusion of music, song, drama, myth and electronics.

GRAMOPHONE AWARD - BEST CONTEMPORARY RECORDING 1998
'Music of utterly compelling beauty and sheer elemental force' The Independent
'This has to be one of the most important recording events of the decade' The Sunday Times

Shiva Feshareki

Shiva Feshareki: Turning World

Shiva Feshareki | Kit Downes | BBC Singers | Sofi Jeannin | James Bulley | London Contemporary Orchestra | Robert Ames released 2022

Aetherworld for choir, organ and immersive electronics/turntables was recorded at its BBC Proms premiere in 2021, and is exemplary of Feshareki boldly grappling with the dualities of music and meaning. Focussing on the natural harmonics of the voice, the choral material in Aetherworld is based largely on harmonic overtones, revealing the structure of the sound; the infinite harmonics nestled within a single fundamental pitch.

THE GUARDIAN'S CONTEMPORARY ALBUM OF THE MONTH
"Feshareki's Aetherworld is a bold and fascinating Josquin-inspired sonic landscape, melding overtone singing, organ and real-time electronics" BBC Music Magazine

Giles Swayne: Cry

Giles Swayne: Cry

BBC Singers | John Poole released 1994

Cry, for 28 solo voices and electronics, is an epic work that describes the creation myth, contrasting intricate rhythmic figures with huge arching phrases, and close dissonances with massive major chords.

'It is a Creation epic, a brilliantly conceived and executed 'vision' in vocal sound ... a remarkable achievement.' Financial Times
'Giles Swayne caused a stir with this gigantic work... with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to understand why... Excellent singing from the BBC Singers under John Poole.' BBC Music Magazine

Judith Weird vanishing bridegroom artwork

Judith Weir: The Vanishing Bridegroom

BBC Singers | BBC Symphony Orchestra | Martyn Brabbins released 2014

Judith Weir's opera The Vanishing Bridegroom, commissioned by Glasgow District Council for the 1990 City of Culture celebrations, takes three Scottish folktales, all concerned with disappearance: The Inheritance features a runaway bride; The Disappearance tells of a man abducted by supernatural forces; and The Stranger is the story of an independent-minded girl wooed by a sinister stranger.

BBC Music Magazine Critics' Choice Award 2014
‘A serious tour de force in technical and dramatic terms, The Vanishing Bridegroom brims with moments where the level of atmospheric storytelling is mesmerising.’ BBC Music Magazine
‘Weir’s brash, impetuous, spiky music is at once unabashedly modern and continually entertaining. A terrific performance’ The New York Times

Anthony Payne

Anthony Payne: Phoenix Mass

BBC Singers | The Philip Jones Brass Ensemble | John Poole | Susan Bradshaw | Jane Manning | The Nash Ensemble | Lionel Friend | Jane’s Minstrels released 2013

Phoenix Mass, written in 1965, was originally intended for school choir, but rapidly turned into a much bigger and more demanding work, incorporating English as well as Latin Mass texts (notably in the Gloria) and mixing spoken phrases with sung; it's scored, similarly to Stravinsky's Mass, for chorus and brass ensemble.

‘Enjoyable sequence of mostly early works… Phoenix Mass, heard in a vivid 1977 recording with the Phillip Jones Brass Ensemble.'Sunday Times
'Riveting ... a fascinating collection' BBC Music Magazine

Saxton

Robert Saxton: The Wandering Jew

Roderick Williams | BBC Singers | BBC Symphony Orchestra | André de Ridder released 2011

Saxton's epic opera merges Christian and Jewish tradition in the myth of the eternal outsider, the Wandering Jew.

'A near-exemplary presentation of a work that offers much of the substance in it's treatment of an age-old yet continually relevant narrative, and which anyone at all interested in English-language opera needs to hear' International Record Review
'The performance is first rate … a major undertaking that has been realised with great care' The Guardian

Brian Elias cover

Brian Elias: Laments

Catherine Wyn-Rogers | BBC Singers | BBC Symphony Orchestra | Tadaaki Otaka released 2000

Elias's acclaimed settings of the anguished poetry of exiled Russian author Irina Ratushinskaya are coupled with Laments, which sets traditional folk texts of loss and mourning in the nearly extinct Sicilian-Greek dialect, Grico.

'Shot through with furious dark passion' The Sunday Times

Harrison Birtwistle Angel fighter

Harrison Birtwistle: Angel Fighter

Andrew Watts | Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts | BBC Singers | London Sinfonietta | David Atherton released 2015

Described by The Guardian as 'hauntingly powerful', Birtwistle's cantata Angel Fighter vividly explores the Biblical story of the struggle between man and divine being from the Book of Genesis. Quartertones and string harmonics enhance the otherworldly descent of the Angel from Heaven and librettist Stephen Plaice makes clever use of Enochian, an angelic language 'discovered' by the 16th century alchemist John Dee.

'Birtwistle unleashes all his powers ... a thrilling dramatisation of the Bible story' BBC Music Magazine
'Angel Fighter owes as much to terse commentaries from choir and instruments as to extended dialogues between the admirable solo singers, and Atherton couples scrupulous attention to detail with exemplary alertness to the steadily unfolding shape of the whole.' Gramophone

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