15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well off the beaten track..., September 28, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Bernstein & Copland: From King's (Audio CD)
If you are looking for something well off the beaten track of choral music from England's finest, this disc is the best you could hope for. Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" are as close to "West Side Story" as sacred music gets, and is performed with appropriate sensitivity and energy. As for the other works: Schuman's "Carols of Death" certainly live up to their morbid title, although the third stands out as more digestible than the others; Ives gruelling "Psalm 90" and Larsen's "How it thrills us" are similarly well sung and capture as a whole the rich diversity of American choral music. The only real failure on this disc is the Copland setting "In the Beginning"- did Stephen Cleobury really have to employ a mezzo-soprano with such heavy vibrato? It sounds absolutely out of tune whenever she is singing- that kind of voice belongs in the opera house and nowhere else, in my blunt opinion. Nevertheless, a worthwhile hour of material.
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