The Passing of the Year = ERIC WHITACRE: 3 Flower Songs; Sleep; Five Hebrew Love Songs; A Boy and a Girl; JONATHAN DOVE: The Passing of the Year; MORTEN LAURIDSEN: Les Chansons Des Roses; JEAN BELMONT-FORD: If Music be the Food of Love – Christine Chang, piano/ Jennifer Cho, violin/ Antioch Chamber Ensemble/ Joshua Copeland, director – MSR Classics 1315, 66:04 [Distr. by Albany] ****:
The Antioch Chamber Ensemble is a New York area choral group consisting of 12 members (4 Sop., 2 Alto, 2 Ten., 4 Bass) who sing with an unaffected verve and tight ensemble unity that many other groups can only envy. This particular selection is culled from concert programs done over the last two years at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, a favorite haunt of the group and a place where they always receive much praise and warm welcomes.
This program, once the air is squeezed out of the lines, might be considered a tribute to Eric Whitacre, one of the most well-known and popular of contemporary choral writers. But a quick glance at the other three also demonstrates a smattering of other quite well-known composers in the choral realm as well, and the program as a whole is very satisfying. If I had to pick, I think I would go with Morten Lauridsen’s Les Chansons Des Roses as the most interesting and fulfilling—and certainly the most melodic—piece here. But any of the Whitacre numbers is sure to please, and Jonathan Dove’s The Passing of the Year (and note to MSR—please provide all of the texts, not just the ones not in English) based on poetry by Blake, Dickinson, Peele, Nashe, and Tennyson, is a fine cycle of no little invention and dramatic effect. I can’t complain about any of this as the ACE brings a lot of energy and drive, not to mention subtlety and substance to all of this music, captured in great sound during the festival (and no applause, thank goodness) at the St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Charleston. Bravo to all concerned.
— Steven Ritter
1933 Les chefs proscrits – Ernst Viebig, Conductor – Forgotten Records
A fine conductor, unfortunately suppressed by the vicious political climate of the ’30s
