Vocal and Choral

Allan Ramsay's The Gentle Shepherd 
Makaris
Olde Focus Recordings FCR924 (newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue/makaris-allan-ramsays-the-gentle-shepherd)

Throughout the 18th century, Allan Ramsay’s The Gentle Shepherd (1729) was a smash hit on Edinburgh and London stages, and continued to be performed by amateur companies until late in the 19th. Robert Burns himself praised the poetry, and the story inspired over 40 paintings. Now, 300 years after the libretto’s publication, Scottish Baroque ensemble Makaris has given us the opera’s very first recording, and it is a delight— brimming with humour, verve, and accomplished musicianship.

This was not only the first Scottish opera but also the first ballad opera, an original libretto set to popular airs and songs of the day. These have no composer in the usual sense; the poet would simply indicate the name of the air to which his words should be sung. For this reason, much of the compositional responsibility fell on the musicians, who operated in a liminal space between oral and written traditions. For this recording Makaris had to create their own arrangements, drawing from a bare-bones score made after Ramsay’s death and digging into archives. They admit to taking some liberties for the sake of bringing the songs alive by choosing unexpected or atypical harmonies. This is all for the better; it springs off the recording so vividly that one longs for a live production.

This recording will appeal to those who enjoy theatre music by Boyce or Arne and works such as the Beggar’s Opera. It might also intrigue those who are familiar with some of the traditional tunes that show up here, in sparkling arrangements and with words added. The Waulking of the Fould is played much the same as it is now in Cape Breton or Scotland, and the O’Carolan’s beloved Sí Beag, Sí Mór is very recognizable, too. 

Ramsay’s work has one more relevant element for Canadian listeners in 2025: one of his motivations in writing and publishing was to champion Scotland’s culture and identity, and he was a vocal opponent of the Union of 1707 (which incorporated Scotland into Great Britain). Now, where is OUR Gentle Shepherd?

John Weldon - The Judgement of Paris
Academy of Ancient Music; Cambridge Handel Opera; Julian Perkins
AAM AAM046 (aam.co.uk/product/john-weldon-the-judgment-of-paris)

This lesser-known masque is a rarity. In an era of prequels The Judgement of Paris is certainly not performed frequently, and never before recorded. It would do well to remember that the story this masque tells is a prequel to Homer’s epic of the Trojan war, the Iliad. 

The Judgement of Paris, an important augury of the Trojan war, appears in Book 24, Verse 22 (ff) of the Iliad. In that event Eris, the goddess of discord, not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, extracts revenge by tossing a golden Apple of Discord, inscribed, "To the fairest one," amid the wedding guests. This results in a dispute between demigoddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite as to who the “fairest” is. Aphrodite bemuses Paris into kidnapping Helen of Sparta as the most beautiful mortal woman in the world, carrying her off to Troy. Thus, Eris' casus belli precipitates the Trojan War.

John Weldon (1670-1729) “won” a contest to compose music to William Congreve’s libretto. His succession of short arias are executed masterfully. These all feature eloquently crafted ritornellos and an attractive variety of instrumental writing. Each of the performances by the seven principal characters, chorus and instrumentalists is stellar. The Academy of Ancient Music and Cambridge Handel Opera Company’s period piece helmed by Julian Perkins runs at white heat when Jonathan Brown’s Paris takes the stage. Meanwhile Anna Dennis’ masterful Venus sparkles in every phrase.

Art Choral Vol.6 - Moderne 
Ensemble Artchoral; Matthias Maute
ATMA ACD2 2425 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/art-choral-vol-6-moderne)

Five previous “Volumes” by Montreal’s Ensemble ArtChoral traversed the Renaissance-to-Romantic musical eras. Vol.6, Moderne, offers 11 pieces from the 20th and 21st centuries, their impact enhanced by the CD’s reverberant acoustic, making the 12-member ensemble sound much bigger. 

Two movements from Quatuor Antiphonae Marianae Selectae by Slovenian Ambrož Čopi (b.1973) are engagingly cheerful and rhythmically playful. Unicornis Captivatur by Norwegian Ola Gjeilo (b.1978) alternates reverential solemnity with joyful celebration in a tale of animal death and rebirth.

Three stirring works evoke medieval chant – Præter rerum seriem by Canada’s Andrew Balfour (b.1967), the somber Kyrie eleison from Missa Regensis by Latvian Ugis Prauliņš (b.1957) and, most movingly, the haunting, lyrical O magnum mysterium by American Morten Lauridsen (b.1943). These soul-searching pieces receive appropriately slow, reflective treatment from conductor Matthias Maute. This contrasts with Maute’s very rapid tempi that compromise the noble gravitas of two beloved favourites, heard here in alternative settings – Agnus Dei, Samuel Barber’s own arrangement of his Adagio for Strings and Lux Æterna, a transcription by John Cameron of Nimrod from Elgar’s Enigma Variations.

The CD closes with two austere motets – Pablo Casals’ O vos omnes and Aaron Copland’s Help Us, O Lord (composed as an assignment while studying with Nadia Boulanger). A more fitting ending, I think, would have been the disc’s seventh track – Nyon Nyon by American Jake Runestad (b.1986), the singers propulsively mimicking electric guitars, synthesizers and drums. It’s a perfect encore piece!

Rufus Wainwright - Dream Requiem
Meryl Streep; Anna Prohaska; Maitrise, Choeur and Orchestre Philharmonique di Radio France; Mikko Franck
Warner Classics 5021732500601 (warnerclassics.com/release/dream-requiem-rufus-wainwright)

Rufus Wainwright’s Dream Requiem was surely made for this moment – even though the Canadian composer, pop songwriter and singer wrote it during the throes of COVID. We feel a sense of foreboding right from the beginning, when the narrator tells us, "I had a dream, which was not all a dream.” With that, we are plunged into the nightmare of Lord Byron’s aptly named poem, Darkness. 

A Requiem deals with loss. Yet what’s described is total annihilation. Wainwright artfully transcends the utter devastation by layering sections of the Latin Mass for the Dead into Byron’s apocalyptic poem. Hope comes in the final section, the In Paradisum, when the sublime children’s choir offers the consolations of eternal rest.  

Wainwright’s musical language here is not the most daring. But it is imaginative, personal, and highly expressive. Sumptuous melodies, catchy rhythms, rich harmonies – all inescapably Wainwright’s.

Conductor Mikko Franck calibrates the huge forces for both expressiveness and clarity. Soprano Anna Prohaska soars with the exquisite presence of a divine spirit, while the dramatically charged choir honours Wainwright’s deep connection to the words. 

Actor Meryl Streep catches every nuance in Byron’s text. Her sober narration reins in Wainwright’s heart-on-sleeve romanticism – that is, until the Dies Irae. Streep, as the voice of retribution, tears through it in a frenetic, virtuosic tour de force.  

Wainwright is undoubtedly better known for his singing and songwriting than his classical compositions. But Dream Requiem should be heard.

Electric Fields
Barbara Hannigan; Kati and Marielle Labeque; David Chalmin
Alpha Classics ALPHA 980 (outhere-music.com/en/albums/electric-fields)

By now my editor knows full well just how mesmerised I am by Barbara Hannigan. How – in my eyes – she can do no wrong. He also knows that if there is a new Hannigan recording – as sure as day follows night – I will make a beeline for it and likely find no fault in it whatsoever. The reason? There will be no fault with a Hannigan recording. That’s just the way it is. 

Let’s put aside Hannigan’s prowess as an actor and conductor for now. As an operatic star she is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of artist who does everything right, by any composer, in any repertoire from any era. This is how things go on Electric Fields (or might I say, “eclectic fields”?).

Her soprano instrument is lustrous throughout, whether she is interpreting Hildegard von Bingen (c.1098-1179) – O virga mediatrix and O vis aetrnitatis – or Barbara Strozzi (1619-1977) – Che si può fare – or two works by Bryce Dessner (b.1976). Hannigan also contributes one composition – Che t’ho fatt’io based on a fragment of Latin texts by Francesca Caccini (1587-c.1640).

Admittedly Hannigan shines alongside such star power as the piano-playing heavyweights, Katia and Marielle Labèque, and the wizardry of composer/performer David Chalmin’s ambient atmospheric contributions. But Hannigan’s performance is flawless – again. Each work is a priceless sound-painting. Each phrase has its own tinta; each vocal section a distinctive character. It’s exciting to wonder what comes next. One can only dream.

Christopher Tyler Nickel - Mass; Te Deum
Catherine Redding; Vancouver Chamber Choir; Vancouver Contemporary Orchestra; Clyde Mitchell
Avie Records AV2748 (avie-records.com/releases/christopher-tyler-nickel-mass-•-te-deum)

“Beauty-filled music” – that’s what I called Christopher Tyler Nickel’s Requiem (The WholeNote, Summer 2024), praising Nickel’s “distinctive melodic gift” that consolidated influences from Gregorian Chant to Bruckner, Fauré and Carl Orff. Along with his many scores for film, theatre and TV, the B.C.-based Nickel continues his commitment to sacred texts with Mass and Te Deum, composed concurrently between 2019 and 2024. Around 26 minutes each, they’re modest in scale compared to the 70-minute Requiem and minuscule measured against his seven-hour setting of The Gospel According to Mark.

“I’m always finding the melancholy in things,” writes Nickel. Here, his unusual scoring combines, in addition to strings, the plaintiveness of oboe, English horn, oboe d’amore and bass oboe with the sepulchral sonorities of four horns and tuba in Te Deum, two Wagner tubas replacing two of the horns in Mass. The pervading disquiet is heightened by continually shifting, irregular meters, including measures of five, seven and ten beats.

Nickel supplants Requiem’s stylistic eclecticism with a hyper-emotional, near-cinematic spin on Renaissance modes and harmonies. Mass begins with a plea of desperation in Kyrie, followed by a joyous Gloria, but solemnity reigns throughout the remaining sections. Te Deum is even darker. Canadian soprano, Catherine Redding, soloist in the Requiem recording, adds fervent entreaties to Te Deum’s intense anguish. Clyde Mitchell, conductor of the Requiem CD, draws urgent drama from Vancouver’s Chamber Choir and Contemporary Orchestra in these latest examples of Nickel’s truly “beauty-filled music.” 

Benedict Sheehan - Ukrainian War Requiem
Axios Men's Ensemble; Pro Coro Canada; Michael Zaugg
Cappella Records CR432 SACD (axioschoir.com)

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, 2022 American Benedict Sheehan received a commission from Edmonton’s Axios Men’s Ensemble, performers of Eastern European sacred music, many of its singers sharing Ukrainian roots. Sheehan was asked, he writes, for “a new composition in honor of those fallen in Ukraine’s struggle for freedom.”

Sheehan’s Ukrainian War Requiem was premiered in Edmonton on April 14, 2024 with the Axios Men’s Ensemble and the tenors and basses of Edmonton’s Pro Coro Canada conducted by Pro Coro’s artistic director, Swiss-born Michael Zaugg.

In keeping with Ukraine’s mixed religious heritage – Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish – Sheehan drew texts from the Ukrainian Memorial Service, hymns of St. John of Damascus, Psalms 50 and 90, the New Testament Gospels and the Latin Requiem Mass. He combined, he says, “a variety of musical influences, including Ukrainian and Galician plainchant (somoilka), Gregorian chant, a Ukrainian Jewish psalm tone (nusach) and an array of original melodies,” as well as Shche Ne Vmerla Ukraïna (Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished), Ukraine’s national anthem.

Throughout the work’s 67 minutes, the richly sonorous men’s chorus sings with fervent urgency in Ukrainian, Latin and English, several choristers contributing solos; the major solos are sung by Ukrainian soprano Yuliia Kasimova and Canadian tenor John Tessier. Based on traditional church modes, Sheehan’s powerful, often heart-rendingly beautiful score is a loving tribute to the Ukrainian dead that deserves to be heard everywhere in remembrance of all victims of all wars.