Saint Säens: Christmas Oratorio/Britten: Ceremony of Carols
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Customer Reviews
One of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard
As others have written, I had never heard this oratorio until I took it from a store's bin of Christmas tapes more than ten years ago. When I saw it again last year in CD, I grabbed it again. I don't know about the inspiration of the performance; I just think the soprano's voice is one of the most lyrical and unencumbered I have ever heard. Her voice floats over the beautiful passages including the words "in principio." I plan to buy two more copies to hedge against the wearing out of my current one. There may be other choirs who perform technically better, but I cannot imagine any soprano singing more ethereally than does the lovely voice on this CD. Having sung the Ceremony of Carols many time in many choirs, I loved it, although I do prefer the old English words.
Splendid Saint-Saens
I don't usually disagree with prior reviews but here I have to. I have owned this CD for at least 8 years, maybe longer. And I love it. The Saint-Saens is a very special piece of music and I am totally dumbfounded why nobody ever plays it. It does not sound difficult, so a church chior and orchestra could easily take a stab at it. Instead, we get one Handel Messiah after another at Christmas. And this performance sounds just perfect to me. True, there are no texts but remember, this a super budget CD and your are lucky to get performer's names sometimes. As for the Britten, it is a piece I have little love for. And so I will not comment on the performance.
The real gem here is the Oratorio
I think this album is worth buying for the Oratorio alone. Saint-Saens' Oratorio is way too underrated and underperformed, and I hadn't heard of it myself until my fine arts program put on a production of it this semester. It's a small scale work written only for strings, harp and organ (and chorus and soloists of course), nevertheless it is absolutely gorgeous. Even the recitative is beautiful! My personal fav's are the Soprano and Baritone duet (in which the soprano hits a high C without shattering the windows), the Tenor, Soprano and Baritone Trio which in itself is one of the most beautiful and haunting pieces of music that I've heard, and the Quartet for Alto, Soprano, Mezzo, and Bass. I don't know anything about Britten's ceremony of carols, but I would still buy this album even if it were solely for the Oratorio. And regardless of what others have said, I think this particular recording of it is marvellous.
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