US TARIFFS UPDATE | August 2025 | No impact expected on your Presto orders | Read full details
Britten: Hymn To St Cecilia
RIAS Kammerchor, Justin Doyle
This is very pleasant listening…The RIAS Chamber Choice sings each well contrasted dance [from Gloriana] to perfection…Equally good is the choir’s account of A.M.D.G…These receive vibrant and...
Britten: Hymn To St Cecilia
RIAS Kammerchor, Justin Doyle
Purchase product
This is very pleasant listening…The RIAS Chamber Choice sings each well contrasted dance [from Gloriana] to perfection…Equally good is the choir’s account of A.M.D.G…These receive vibrant and...
About
Having dazzled the critics (Choc de Classica, the German Record Critics’ Award) some 16 years earlier with their label debut featuring best-loved Twentieth Century English acapella works, the members of RIAS Kammerchor revisit one of their favourite composers, Benjamin Britten - this time, under the direction of the choir’s new chief conductor, Justin Doyle.
A perfect occasion to discover his new reading of the composer’s enchanting setting of poems written in honour of the patron saint of musicians by WH Auden (he would later rename them ‘Anthem for St. Cecilia’s Day [for Benjamin Britten]’), alongside other choral settings comprising this glorious album entirely devoted to Britain’s greatest Twentieth Century composer.
Contents and tracklist
- Jonathan E. de la Paz Zaen (soloist), Katharina Hohlfeld (soloist), Mi-Young Kim (soloist), Waltraud Heinrich (soloist), Minsub Hong (soloist)
- RIAS Kammerchor
- Justin Doyle
- Mi-Young Kim (soloist), Susanne Langner (soloist), Volker Arndt (soloist), Stefan Drexlmeier (soloist)
- RIAS Kammerchor
- Justin Doyle
Awards and reviews
April 2019
This is very pleasant listening…The RIAS Chamber Choice sings each well contrasted dance [from Gloriana] to perfection…Equally good is the choir’s account of A.M.D.G…These receive vibrant and engaging accounts, the choir’s zestful singing, cleanly pithed and euphonious, bringing out the haunting sweetness as well as the mysterious atmosphere of Britten’s music.
May 2019
Justin Doyle’s judgement throughout is exceptional. He and his forces capture the celebratory nature of the popular Choral Dances from ‘Gloriana’, swinging the cross-rhythms of ‘Time’ and finding the calm in ‘Concord’. A Hymn to the Virgin from Britten’s mid-teens is beautifully poised.
March 2019
The sonorous weight and burnished tone of the RIAS ensemble (recorded with appropriate spaciousness and clarity of focus in Berlin’s Jesus-Christus-Kirche) bring out the dramatic power and lyric intensity of Britten at his most imaginative.
3rd February 2019
Under the British director Justin Doyle, the impeccably drilled (and accented) Berlin RIAS chamber choir bring to these supremely idiomatic pieces a gratifying array of rich colours.
