Mendelssohn: Sacred Choral Works Latvian Radio Choir & Sigvards Klava

• Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847): Psalm 100, Jauchzet dem Herrn, alle Welt (WoO 28; MWV B 45):
• 1 Mendelssohn: Psalm 100, Jauchzet dem Herrn, alle Welt (WoO 28; MWV B 45) 04:37
• Die Deutsche Liturgie, MWV 57:
• 2 Mendelssohn: Die Deutsche Liturgie, MWV 57: Kyrie (WoO 24) 01:16
• 3 Mendelssohn: Die Deutsche Liturgie, MWV 57: Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe (Gloria; WoO 26) 04:51
• 4 Mendelssohn: Die Deutsche Liturgie, MWV 57: Heilig (Sanctus, WoO 27) 01:48
• Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79:
• 5 Mendelssohn: Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79: Im Advent (Lasset uns frohlocken, MWV B 54) 01:30
• 6 Mendelssohn: Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79: Am Weinachten (Frohlocket, ihr Völker auf Erden, MWV B 42) 01:31
• 7 Mendelssohn: Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79: Am Neujahrstage (Herr Gott, du bist unsre Zuflucht, MWV B 44) 03:54
• 8 Mendelssohn: Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79: In der Passionszeit (Herr, gedenke nicht unsrer Übeltaten, MWV B 50) 02:10
• 9 Mendelssohn: Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79: Am Karfreitage (Um unsrer Sünden willen, MWV B 52) 02:01
• 10 Mendelssohn: Sechs Sprüche, Op. 79: Am Himmelfahrtstage (Erhaben, o Herr, über alles Lob, MWV B 55) 01:50
• Drei Psalmen, Op. 78:
• 11 Mendelssohn: Drei Psalmen, Op. 78: Psalm 2, Warum toben die Heiden (MWV B 41) 06:28
• 12 Mendelssohn: Drei Psalmen, Op. 78: Gloria Patri (MWV B 41) 01:41
• 13 Mendelssohn: Drei Psalmen, Op. 78: Psalm 43, Richte mich, Gott und führe meine Sache (MWV B 46) 04:27
• 14 Mendelssohn: Drei Psalmen, Op. 78: Ehre sei dem Vater (MWV B 48) 03:19
• 15 Mendelssohn: Drei Psalmen, Op. 78: Psalm 22, Mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen (MWV B 51) 09:33
• Zum Abendsegen (WoO 12; MWV B 27)
• 16 Mendelssohn: Zum Abendsegen (WoO 12; MWV B 27) 03:13
• Total Runtime 54:09

Info zu Mendelssohn: Sacred Choral Works

Dieses neue Album des preisgekrönten lettischen Rundfunkchors unter der Leitung von Sigvards Kļava - der kürzlich von der New York Times als „erstaunlich“, vom BBC Music Magazine als „hervorragend“ und von NPR als „vielleicht der beste Chor, der heute singt“ gefeiert wurde - konzentriert sich auf die geistlichen Chorwerke eines der größten Komponisten der Romantik, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).

Obwohl der junge Felix Mendelssohn bis zu seinem siebten Lebensjahr, als er in Berlin in die christlich-reformierte Kirche getauft wurde, nicht im Glauben erzogen wurde, waren die christlichen Traditionen in seinem Schaffen stark ausgeprägt. Für Mendelssohn, der sich so sehr für die Werke Johann Sebastian Bachs einsetzte und auch dessen Matthäuspassion wiederentdeckte, war das Schreiben geistlicher Chorwerke eine ganz natürliche Wahl. Bereits 1821 - im Alter von gerade einmal 12 Jahren - begann er mit einer Reihe von Psalmvertonungen, und die Chorliteratur des Komponisten sollte diese frühen, unausgereiften Bemühungen bald mit St. Paul (1836), Elias (1846) und Die erste Walpurgisnacht (1831-43) in großem Umfang übertreffen. Vor allem in seinem letzten Lebensjahrzehnt wandte sich Mendelssohn wieder der Komposition unbegleiteter Chorwerke zu, und die meisten Werke dieser Sammlung stammen aus den 1840er Jahren, als der Komponist bereits an einer Krankheit litt, die sich als seine letzte, tödliche erweisen sollte. Die größten Werke des Albums sind die Sechs Sprüche (1843-46), wobei jede Hymne einem bestimmten Festtag des Jahres gewidmet ist, und die Drei Psalmen (1843-45). Diese Aufnahme der Psalmen enthält auch die 1997 im Carus Verlag erschienene Weltersteinspielung von Ehre sei dem Vater.

Latvian Radio Choir
Sigvards Klava, Dirigent

Sigvards Kļava
began working with the Latvian Radio Choir in 1987 and was appointed its Chief Conductor and Artistic Director in 1992. As one of Latvia's most prolific choral conductors, Sigvards Kļava has collaborated with every leading choir and orchestra in the country, performing the great works of the standard repertoire in addition to conducting most premieres of new choral works by Latvian composers. He has recorded over 20 CDs with the Latvian Radio Choir. Sigvards Kļava has also been Chief Conductor at a number of Latvian and Nordic song festivals. He is a co-founder of the Latvian New Music Festival ARENA and serves as a member of its artistic board. He teaches young conductors at the Choral Department of the Latvian Academy of Music and the Choral College of the Riga Lutheran Cathedral. Sigvards Kļava appears as a guest conductor with leading European choirs. He has received the Latvian Great Music Award and the Latvian Cabinet of Ministers Award.

Einojuhani Rautavaara
(born 9 October 1928) is internationally one of the best known and most frequently performed Finnish composers. He is by nature a romantic, even a mystic, as is often apparent from the titles of his works: for example Angels and Visitations for orchestra or his double-bass concerto Angel of Dusk. Despite Rautavaara's label of "mysticism" he is a complex and contradictory figure whose works cannot be categorized in stylistic terms.

At the age of seventeen Rautavaara began studying the piano and later went on to study musicology at Helsinki University and composition at the Sibelius Academy. From 1951-53 he was a pupil of Aarre Merikanto receiving his diploma in composition in 1957. In 1955 the Koussewitzky Foundation awarded Jean Sibelius a scholarship in honour of his 90th birthday to enable a young Finnish composer of his choice to study in the United States. Sibelius selected Rautavaara who spent two years studying with Vincent Persichetti at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and also took part in the summer courses at Tanglewood given by Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland. In 1957 Rautavaara continued his studies with Wladimir Vogel in Ascona, Switzerland and a year later with Rudolf Petzold in Cologne. Rautavaara has taught and lectured at the Sibelius Academy as the professor of composition. Since 1988 he has made his living as a composer in Helsinki.

Rautavaara's earliest works revealed close ties to tradition but also his desire to renew it. They were followed by an extreme constructivist and avant-garde phase (as in the serially organized fourth symphony "Arabescata", 1962) after which Rautavaara turned to hyper-romanticism and finally mysticism. Since the early 1980s, Rautavaara has adopted a sort of post-modern musical language in which modern and traditional elements of varying degrees of constructivism or freedom are combined with one another.

Rautavaara has composed eight symphonies, the most frequently performed of them being the Angel of Light, his seventh symphony. Symphony No. 8, The Journey was premiered in April 2000 by The Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch. Other important groups of works include concertos for different solo instruments, among them the three piano concertos, the popular Violin Concerto (1977), the Harp Concerto (2000) and the Clarinet Concerto (2001-02). Rautavaara has also written a large body of chamber music as well as choral and vocal works including All-Night Vigil for a cappella chorus. One of Rautavaara's most popular works is Cantus arcticus, concerto for birds and orchestra, in which the straightforward orchestral part is juxtaposed with the sounds of birds recorded by the composer himself. Rautavaara's latest orchestral works, published by Boosey & Hawkes, include and Manhattan Trilogy (2004), Book of Visions (2005), Before the Icons (2005) and A Tapestry of Life (2007).

Apart form his symphonies (ODE 1145-2Q) and concertos (ODE 1156-2Q), the central pillars of Rautavaara's extensive oeuvre are his operas. With Vincent (1985-87) and The House of the Sun (1990) Rautavaara has scored a notable international success. Aleksis Kivi (1995-96) was premiered at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 1997 and it has been performed in Cosenza, Italy and Minneapolis, U.S.A since then. The latest stage work is Rasputin (2001-2003), an opera about the life of mystic and healer Grigory Rasputin.

Booklet für Mendelssohn: Sacred Choral Works