Customer Reviews

Cantate Hodie: Sing Forth This Day!

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I originally bought this CD to own a version of the piece with the foreboding title "Musicological Journey Through the Twelve Days of Christmas." In spite of its academic-sounding name, the piece is a romp through variations on the familiar Twelve Days of Christmas song written in styles of Western classical music starting with Gregorian chant. My kids loved it and got most of the musical jokes. The twelfth day in the style of the march-king Sousa is great fun! I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the rest of the music on the CD. The sound throughout is top-notch, well sung and performed and well recorded. Some of the music consists of old familiar Christmas songs; other tracks are world premiere recordings. Because the instruments are all brass, some parts might feel "heavy" when one might have expected strings and woodwinds, but the brass brings its own strength, beauty, and clarity to the performances and blends well with the voices. I found the music enjoyable and pleasant, a good blend of familiar and novel, a nice addition to the regular Christmas fare.

This is quite a collection, and a must-have for anyone's collection of holiday music. Stacking a group of CD's on your changer can often yield similar renditions of the same carols. "Cantate Hodie: Sing Forth This Day!" contains some of your old favorites with a new twist, plus some delightful new and unusual pieces that have made me want to play this over and over again. You won't be disappointed with this one!

Cantate Hodie is a wonderful new CD filled with inspirational and glorious music for the holiday season. The Bach Choir of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Symphony Brass masterfully perform new works by Glenn Rudolph, Steven Paulus, Joseph Wilcox Jenkins, Mack Wilberg, and Keiren MacMillan - works that were commissioned by the Bach Choir and are premiered on this CD. Interspersed with these new pieces are wonderful renditons of the haunting 'In the Bleak Midwinter', 'Silent Night', 'All My Heart This Night Rejoices', and 'Jingle Bells'. The 'Musicological Twelve Days of Christmas' is a delightfully humorous variation from the traditional rendition. This CD is a wonderful treat - new and different - and perfect for Christmas.

I bought this CD after a community choral group of which I'm a member sang Glenn Rudolph's spectacular "The Dream Isaiah Saw" - commissioned by the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh. That alone is makes the CD a stand-out in my collection of Christmas music, but other selections are an unexpected bonus. If you already have all the familiar carols, then this CD will please you with some beautiful new music. Unlike another reviewer, I thought the balance of voices and brass was very good. The brass was never overpowering, and the singers were never in full voice. I highly recommend this, and I hope I can make it to Pittsburgh to hear the Bach Choir.

The moment you spin this disc in surround super audio sound, you are there in Pittsburgh, as multiple sound channels effectively re-create the venue, the Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, and its E.F. Skinner organ. You are probably quite happy to be celebrating the holidays with these singers and players.

Like a British set of traditional lessons and sung carols, this is an occasion of seasonal community celebration.

The Bach Choir of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA is joined by brass players from the local symphony orchestra. This band learned its chops and then some, not least under long-time music director William Steinberg. Strong musical foundations in Pittsburgh were further enhanced by a whole renowned host of additional guest conductors, and later music directors, passing through the likes of Andre Previn, Lorin Maazel, Marek Janowski, to the current leader Manfred Honek.

The opening number is a medley cantata of familiar Christmas carol favorites, arranged and set by composer Jenkins. Then comes Harold Darke's equally familiar modern carol, In The Bleak Midwinter. Other settings follow, leading up to contemporary composer outings, with three carols from Stephen Paulus and two carols from Mark Wilberg and one from Kieran MacMillan. Paulus set texts from Shakespeare, John Milton, and William Dunbar. Wilberg and MacMillan are working with even older holiday texts, though there is nothing sleepy or dusty about their settings of those older texts. None of this world premier holiday music mars or detracts from the familiar festivities and overall sense of occasion already set. The whole program leans towards a combination of familiar and new, but the happiness and welcome keep time with seasonal song and ritual down through the ages.

To wrap up, we get a really fun setting of the traditional Twelve Days Of Christmas, varied across quite different musical styles of previous periods in the history of western music - each accumulating and repeating verse edging towards a raucous finale, written more or less in the brass band style of John Philip Sousa, thanks to composer transcribers Brady Allred and Daniel Shaw. Then David Willcock's arrangement of Jingle Bells brings the concert to a bright close.

The brass excel in both their accompanist and solo bits, offering clear and apt music to match the largish choir's heft, finesse and vocal qualities.

Unless you hate Christmas, and the holiday season in general, or maybe if you are not all that taken with modernized harmonies in extension of the existing carols traditions - you will probably enjoy the warmth and quality of this holiday music SA-CD. Even a grinch or two might smile, maybe.

I heard the Pittsburgh Brass on Performance Today , plugging this CD, and thought it would be great. I bought it immediately and had it shipped overnight to my Xmas distination. A big waste of money. There are a lot of 'modern' pieces sung loudly by a large choir in unison with music which reminds me of stuff written in Britain after WWII--in minor keys, "important"-sounding.