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Reviews of Our CDs

Fanfare: November/December 1999

TIDINGS OF COMFORT AND JOY. Bart Bradfield, dir; Chicago Choral Artists · CHICAGO CHORAL ARTISTS (52:39). Available for $15 from Chicago Choral Artists

Among the multitude of Christmas discs that one is annually inundated with, this beautifully sung choral program of traditional English carols is a small gem. Recorded at live concerts, the refined, scrupulously blended singing of the Chicago Choral Artists under the sensitive direction of Bart Bradfield is guaranteed to banish the winter chill.

The intelligently chosen program spans four centuries from the haunting polyphony of William Byrd's Lullaby My Sweet Little Baby to 20th-century carols like Elizabeth Poston's Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree and Peter Wishart's Alleluya, A New Work Is Come on Hand. Many of these selections are familiar seasonal chestnuts, but the nicely varied repertoire also offers less familiar items like Herbert Howells's Here Is the Little Door, the Lute-Book Lullaby, and Martin Shaw's I Sing of a Maiden.

Rarely does one hear this repertoire sung with such appealing freshness and such refined vocal textures; from top to bottom, the Chicago Choral Artists betray no weaknesses, with rich singing in all ranges, especially the pure and radiant sopranos. Holst's In the Bleak Mid-Winter receives a spacious, hauntingly atmospheric rendering, and the five Vaughan Williams arrangements are especially well done, with a wonderfully buoyant Sussex Carol and vibrant singing in the multipart writing of the Wassail Song.

The superb recording puts to shame some of the waywardly engineered efforts heard from a few major labels in recent years. Traffic noises from Michigan Avenue betray a few of the selections recorded in Quigley Chapel, but otherwise the three church venues are seamlessly blended, with the acoustics lending an attractive ambient glow to the recording.

If you buy only one Christmas recording this holiday season, let this be it. The supremely stylish singing of the Chicago Choral Artists under Bart Bradfield's direction will assuredly bring the joyful title seasonal tidings to one and all.

Lawrence A. Johnson

Reproduced with permission from Fanfare magazine.