Lux: Nidaros Cathedral Girls Choir, Trondheim Soloists –  2L Records 

by | Mar 16, 2019 | Classical CD Reviews, SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews | 0 comments

Lux: Nidaros Cathedral Girls Choir, Trondheim Soloists –  2L Records 2 disc set cat. # 150 – (released January, 2019) SACD/Blue ray audio with downloadable files for portable or home use

Contemporary Norwegian music in a stunning, fully immersive recording 

What a fine sounding disc from the always reliable 2L label. Lux is a collection of three compositions!

This  album celebrates the 25th anniversary of the founding of Nidaros Cathedral Girls’ Choir (Nidarosdomens Jentekor) in 1992. Unusually, the choir, conducted by Anita Brevik, has chosen to celebrate the event with a Requiem.

The Requiem in Andrew Smith’s version, commissioned by the choir, is loosely based on the Roman Catholic mass for the dead. Several of the texts of the traditional Requiem Mass have been replaced, however, with biblical references to the tragic fate of children, reflecting the all-too-frequent conflicts of today in which the young are innocent victims. The musical material in the Requiem takes its inspiration from Gregorian chant. Melodic fragments of the ancient requiem mass can be heard in the background. Trygve Seim’s improvising saxophone makes up an integral part of the whole, yet lives a life of its own in close companionship with the singers and Ståle Storløkken on organ.

The palette is expanded with the glorious strings of Trondheim Solistene in Ståle Kleiberg’s Hymn to Love and The Light (with Petra Bjørkhaug, organ).

As usual from 2L, the sound is luscious. There are several multi-channel listening options on this disc, and I chose the 5.1 mix. The strings as recorded are as realistically as I have heard in a recording. The voices are ethereal, and were recorded in a reverberant space, the Nidaros Cathedral, in Trondheim, Norway. The organ goes very deep, and the solo saxophone is extremely realistic. This is a perfect demo disc which offers audiophile quality sound, along with fine music from Norway.

2L has done what they regularly do in their releases, offering a variety of listening options in this 2 disc set. One disc is a hybrid SACD disc that can also deliver a standard CD layer. The second disc is a part Blu-ray audio, part data disc. It contains a 2.0 LPCM mix, a 5.1 DTS mix, a 7.1.4 Auro 3D presentation, and a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos version that will play on home theaters that support a normal 7.1 configuration. The disc will also let you download an MQA version, a FLAC version, and MP3 files.

It’s so nice when excellent music is presented in a recording that is arguably perfect in terms of sound quality.

Highly recommended

—Mel Martin

More Information at the 2L Website:

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